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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE LIFE 

OF 

MARY BAKER EDDY 






MRS. EDDrS HISTORY 

T HAVE not had sufficient interest in the matter to 
read or to note from others' reading what the 
enemies of Christian Science are said to be circulat- 
ing regarding my history, but my friends have read 
Sibyl Wilbur's book, ''Life of Mary Baker Eddy,'' 
and request the privilege of buying, circulating, and 
recommending it to the public, I briefly declare that 
nothing has occurred in my life's experience which, 
if correctly narrated and understood, could injure me; 
and not a little is already reported of the good accom- 
plished therein, the self-sacrifice, etc, that has distin- 
guished all my working years, 

I thank Miss Wilbur and the Concord Publishing 
Company for their unselfed labors in placing this 
book before the public, and hereby say that they have 
my permission to publish and circulate this work. 

Mary Baker Eddy. 



The above statement by Mrs. Eddy was published in 
the Christian Science Sentinel of March 12, 1910. 



THE LIFE 

OF 

MARY BAKER EDDY 

BY 

SIBYL WILBUR 




Fourth Edition 



THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PUBLISHING SOCIETY 

Falmouth & St. Paul Streets 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



^^fc^ I L 1 






Copyright, 1907 
By Human Life Publishing Co. 

Copyright, 1907, 1908 

By Sibyl Wilbur O'Brien 

(Now Sibyl Wilbur) 

Copyright, 1913 
By Sibyl Wilbur 

Copyright in England 
All Rights Reserved 



JAN 3 1914 



©CI.A362133 



(:h 






K 



/ 



T is commonly said that, if he would be heard, 
none should write in advance of his times. That 
I do not believe. Only, it does not matter how 
^ few listen. I believe that we are close upon a great 

and deep spiritual change. I believe a new redemp- 
tion is even now conceived of the Divine Spirit in 
the human heart, that is itself as a woman, broken 
in dreajns and yet sustained in faith, patient, long- 
suffering, looking towards home. I believe that 
though the Reign of Peace may be yet a long way 
off, it is drawing near : and that Who shall save us 
anew shall come divinely as a Woman, to save as 
Christ saved, but not as He did, to bring with Her 
a sword, 

William Sharp (Fiona MacLeod) 
in The Isle of Dreams 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction * • . • xi 

CHAPTER 

I Ancestry and Genealogy 1 

II Childhood Days 9 

III Education and Development 21 

IV Change and Bereavement 38 

V Formative Processes . . . .- 49 

VI Illumination and Backward Turning .... 67 

VII The Apotheosis of a Hypnotist 82 

VIII The Mystery of the Quimby Manuscripts . . 97 

IX Mesmerism Dominant 106 

X The Discovery of the Principle of Christian 

Science 117 

XI The Test of Experience 143 

XII Germination and Unfoldment 166 

XIII Mesmerism Dethroned 193 

XIV The First Edition of Science and Health , 208 
XV A Conflict of Personalities 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTEIt PAGE 

XVI A Strange Conspiracy 247 

XVII Organization of Church and College . . . 259 

XVIII Foundation Work in Boston 282 

XIX The Wide Horizon 298 

XX Withdrawal from the World 323 

XXI The Leader in Retirement 344 

XXII Life at Chestnut Hill 371 

XXIII Lift up Thy Gates 397 

Index 411 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Mary Baker Eddy Frontispiece 

From a photograph. 

FACING PAGE 

Mrs. Eddy's Birthplace in Bow, New Hampshire ... 10 
As it looked when she was a child. From a chalk drawing by 
Rufus Baker, steel engraved. 

Engraving copyrighted by Rufus Baker 

The Congregational Church at Tilton, New Hampshire . 32 

Mrs. Eddy was a member of this church for many years and 
taught a class in the Sunday-school. 

Home of Mark Baker in Tilton, New Hampshire ... 44 

Where Mrs. Eddy lived as a young widow with her father after 
her mother's death. Erected in 1848, it has been removed 
from its original environment. 

Home of Abigail Tilton, Tilton, New Hampshire ... 56 

Where Mrs. Eddy Uved with her sister before her second mar- 
riage. Removed from its original environment. 

Cottage at North Groton, New Hampshire 60 

The home in the White Mountains to which Dr. Patterson took 
Mrs. Eddy in 1836. 

The Squire Bagley Homestead, Amesburj, Massachusetts 170 
Where Mrs. Eddy met John Greenleaf Whittier in 1870. 

The "Little House in Broad Street," Lynn, Massachusetts 212 

Where Mrs. Eddy completed the text of the First Edition of 
Science and Health. 

The Massachusetts Metaphysical College . . . . . 288 

One of a series of gray stone residences in Columbus Avenue, 
Boston, occupied by Mrs. Eddy in 1882. 



X ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACING PAGE 

Pleasant View, Concord, New Hampshire 338 

Where Mrs. Eddy resided from 1892 until 1908, and where, from 
its rear balcony, she addressed a concourse of Christian 
Scientists in 1901. 

The Mother Church in Boston 354 

With the Temple Extension. 

Mrs. Eddy's home. Chestnut Hill, Brookline, Massa- 
chusetts 868 



INTRODUCTION 

NO mystery to-day surrounds the life story of 
Mary Baker Eddy. Her birth, her ancestry 
for two hundred years, her education, her social 
development, and her individual service to the world 
have been scrutinized with the strong search- lights 
of both love and criticism. Every event of her long 
career has been established by unimpeachable rec- 
ords and testimony. It is no longer possible to in- 
vent fiction concerning the environment in which 
she was born and reared or the acts which made up 
her life. 

It is possible, however, to minds careless of verity 
or those dominated by prejudice, to distort facts by 
exaggerated statement, to deduce erroneous con- 
clusions from improper handling of data, to make 
wilful and far-fetched conjectures, and to suppress 
illuminative information in relating incidents, — 
information which would reveal the true inwardness 
of a situation otherwise left dark and sinister. Such 
coloring and molding of evidence is a modern 
method used for deducing a readable story from 
statistical documents. 

A story told dramatically, with high lights of 
speculation and deep shadows of conjecture, with 
all the fascinating and engaging charm of the nar- 
rator's personal fancy woven into the texture, does 
make racy and entertaining reading. It requires a 
strong mind to hold fast to simple truth under such 



xii INTRODUCTION 

guidance. Because of the pleasure taken in a good 
story, whole pages of history are mistold and some 
of the noblest characters in the world's annals have 
been misrepresented. 

The average modern, rationalistic and sophisti- 
cated, would far rather read Renan's "Life of 
Jesus," with its vivid coloring, its subtle suggestion, 
its bold deduction, and human sympathy, than the 
simple gospel of St. Mark. Renan flatters his 
intellect and panders to his sensuality; he is made 
to feel himself superior in intelligence to the Lord 
of this earth, and his sensual nature is elevated in 
importance by the argument that it was the illusion 
of an impassioned woman which gave to the world 
the idea of a Deity resurrected from the grave. 

What an interpretation of Christ's agony and 
victory and its proclamation by th,e purified and 
sanctified Mary Magdalene, — she who gave Chris- 
tendom that immortal phrase, "He is risen!" To 
be dominated by such interpretation is no less than 
a moral catastrophe occurring in the region of con- 
sciousness; for not only does Renan's "Life of 
Jesus" entertain, flatter, and excite the intellect as 
an adventure in the realm of ideas, but, as in the 
case of most intellectual audacities, it leaves the ad- 
venturer in disastrous confusion. Renan, indeed, 
professes a delicate and reverent appreciation for 
the divine character he so ruthlessly handles and at 
the close of his drama you behold him a dejected 
chorus with tear-bedimmed eyes, inviting you to 
sigh with him over the monstrous blunder of Geth- 
semane. But the reader finds no tears to shed. 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

Renan has skilfully unpacked his heart of its treas- 
ure, and, by lure and wile, stolen its birthright, its 
title to divine heritage. 

Immensely destructive is the usual commenda- 
tion of this "Life." Destructive to what.? Can 
imagination and diction destroy reality, or, rather, 
can they destroy that faith by which the world lives, 
the faith in the reality of spiritual experience ? 

Now the simple gospel narrative tells a straight 
story of Jesus' life. It is not concerned to compare 
the subject of its text to other men of the times in 
order to prove his reality. It declares his acts as 
they were, whether raising Jairus' daughter, walk- 
ing upon the Sea of Galilee, or feeding the multitude; 
it reveals him scourged, spat upon, and crucified, 
without comment, and without comment relates his 
resurrection and ascension. The gospel is there for 
all time. It was in no haste to win attention and 
therefore did not need coloring or tricking out in 
fancy. Yes, the gospel stands after all documen- 
tary investigation, after the best modern documen- 
tary and comparative criticism can do, even after 
Renan and Strauss. 

I have a life story to relate and I plant myself un- 
reservedly on the methods of St. Mark. St. Mark, I 
believe, was a scribe who related what he had been 
able to gather from witnesses in a direct and un- 
varnished way. Now I shall endeavor to do simply 
that. It is not for me to explain or to expound. 
The facts of this life shall be left to elucidate them- 
selves when set in an orderly and unembellished 
array before the world; the import must carry to 



riv INTRODUCTION 

that consciousness able to receive it. I shall con- 
cern myself only to report the truth. 

In gathering the facts from the past I have often 
encountered the disappointments of imperfect mem- 
ories of a small, a very small, group of men and 
women of advanced years who knew Mrs. Eddy in 
her youth; but the records in town books have 
yielded sufficient information to trace accurately 
Mrs. Eddy's residence from year to year. This data 
refutes certain unfounded assertions which float 
about as loose rumors, such as that related by an 
aged woman in Maiden and printed in the form of 
an interview in the Boston Herald, This story was 
that a Mary Baker told fortunes by reading cards in 
a mean street in Boston before the Civil War, and 
had told this woman's fortune and she believed the 
fortune-teller to be Mrs. Eddy, the founder of 
Christian Science. In the late fifties Mrs. Eddy 
was no longer Mary Baker, but had been twice mar- 
ried. She was then Mrs. Patterson, an almost help- 
less invalid, living in North Groton, a village in 
Northern New Hampshire. She had not visited 
Boston for a long period of years and did not visit 
it for many years to come. Another rumor there 
was that a certain Mrs. Glover, who was a spiritual- 
istic medium, in and around Boston during the 
sixties, could be identified with Mary Baker Eddy 
as one and the same individual. It is not necessary 
to discover who that Mary Baker was or who that 
Mrs. Glover, or to establish that they were individ- 
uals in nowise related to Mrs. Eddy. It is only 
necessary to tell minutely the facts of Mrs. Eddy's 



INTRODUCTION xv 

life which are exclusive of all practices of charlatan- 
ism, and are at all times stainless and honorable. 

All statements of facts made in this narrative are 
founded on reliable evidence, town registers, church 
books, and court records. As to the memories of 
a few old people interviewed by the author, who 
associated with Mary Baker in her youth, it must be 
said that they were not always all that could be 
desired, and it is fortunate that public records can 
usually be depended upon to rectify careless asser- 
tion. Compared together these memories sometimes 
contradicted each other; referred back to themselves, 
they frequently shifted and showed instability; and a 
deplorable thing was that they betrayed evidence of 
having been tampered with by suggestion, the imagi- 
nation having been incited by vanity or cupidity. 

To remember a thing suggested, with a gift in 
full view, is a natural enough performance to chil- 
dren and to those in second childhood. But what 
should be said of the bribers in such a case ? It is 
to the honor of human nature that both men and 
women have resisted the offer of large sums of money 
to remember that which would have been conven- 
ient to the theories of maUcious-minded critics who 
preceded me in their investigations. 

So if the intelligence was sometimes staggered in 
the search for the truth about this illustrious woman 
by encounter with malicious inventions, clearly dis- 
cernible because of the known facts, the provable 
facts, which correct them, it was also frequently 
cheered and uplifted by touching the store of 
thought emanating from persons '* whose spirits and 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

cleanliness and freshness of mind and body make 
old age lovely and desirable." The writer has no- 
where interfered with these memories, neither in 
interview nor in transcription; and at the risk of 
seeming unkind to lonely and impoverished old 
men and women, whom a slight kindness by way of 
gift might have enlivened, has refrained from any 
such act, lest it might be said, to the detriment of this 
history, that the writer, too, had set forth an in- 
vention, instead of the truth. 

But it is a task which I have imposed upon my- 
self to take the wheat of memory and leave the 
chaff. I have refused ignoble deductions volun- 
teered as information. I have refrained from hand- 
ling the relics of rural jealousy strong enough to 
endure for eighty years, babbling what it merely con- 
jectured almost a century ago concerning a nature 
it could not then and cannot now comprehend. 

I ask the reader to refuse to accept as biography 
such gossip which the ephemeral press has detailed. 
For truth's sake, divest your mind of all specula- 
tion and conjecture by which the true story of this 
life has been so ruthlessly caricatured; divest it at 
least for the time, and approach without prejudice 
for an acquaintance with this truly great and sin- 
gular character. We as human beings owe some- 
thing to the consciousness of the age, the great 
highway of souls to come after us. We should make 
the path straight by rejecting wilful scandal, how- 
ever amusing and diverting, and by choosing to 
know the simple gospel truth. 



THE LIFE 

OF 

MARY BAKER EDDY 



THE LIFE OF 

MARY BAKER EDDY 

CHAPTER I 

ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY 

FORTY years after the close of the American 
Revolution Mary Baker was born in the town 
of Bow, New Hampshire. Her birthplace was a 
farmhouse in the midst of cultivated acres, situated 
on a crest of hills overlooking the broad valley of the 
Merrimac River. Bow was not a village, but a 
cluster of farms with a town government, and four 
or five district schools, centers of education and 
rural politics. There was a meeting-house, as the 
homely phrase of those days described the church 
edifice, but many of the God-fearing of the com- 
munity attended divine worship either in the 
adjoining town of Pembroke, across the river, or 
in the neighboring city of Concord, the capital of 
the state, from which Bow is five miles distant. 

Bow was a rural settlement, but it was not remote 
from the stirring forces of the life of its day. The 
men who owned its homesteads had been born in the 
heat of political struggle. Their mothers' birth- 
pangs coincided with those of a nation. They were 
born individualists and democrats. New Hamp- 
shire, a mountainous state, originally covered with 



2 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

dense forests, had presented to its settlers a stern 
struggle with nature. The grandsires of the men of 
this day had been forest clearers, woodsmen who 
had hewn down a wilderness of primeval pines 
over two hundred feet in height. Their sons had 
grown tall and sinewy like the trees they felled. 

New Hampshire lay on the Canadian frontier and 
the French and Indian War had swept it. Its ex- 
posed settlements were constantly menaced by the 
Indians, and, during the wars with England, sub- 
ject to descents from Canada. In those early days 
the sons of New Hampshire held back the red men 
from the less exposed colonies, themselves coming 
face to face with that treacherous warfare of the 
forests. This life of woodsman, mountaineer, and 
Indian fighter had produced a generation of physical 
giants. Intellectually these men had been well-nigh 
as vigorously exercised. The colonial settlement 
had been fraught with bitterest disputes over grants 
and regrants from England, and the surveying of 
those woodlands was made in the heat of conten- 
tion. New Hampshire sent its delegates to the first 
Continental Congress, and two signatures stand for 
this state on that charter of American liberty, the 
Declaration of Independence. Two delegates rep- 
resented her in the Federal Congress, and, ninth 
of the states in ratifying the Constitution, New 
Hampshire in a critical hour insured the success of 
the Union. Two New Hampshire regiments were 
at the battle of Bunker Hill. The battle of Benning- 
ton, that turned the scale of the war, was won by 
New Hampshire and Vermont troops under General 



ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY 3 

Stark, who bore a commission from New Hampshire. 
All through the War of Independence New Hamp- 
shire's contingent to the army was hberal. When the 
war closed New Hampshire men returned to the 
duties of clearing farms, building schoolhouses, and 
worshiping God. Dartmouth College was founded 
in 1789; and soon the little red schoolhouses 
marked the cross-roads newly surveyed. There 
was a high average attendance at these district 
schools during the winter months and learning 
was prized in every home. Thus were men living, 
acting, and feeling in the early years of the nine- 
teenth century in this particular community. 
Religion, schooling, politics, and every man his own 
master, the owner of his own land, made that early 
American life a throbbing, vital experience. 

Men who counted in these communities could not 
be ignorant and unsocial. They were robust from 
contending with nature and savages, intensely 
patriotic and versed in statescraft, as they had but 
recently been evolving a constitution for the new 
world; religious, for they were reestablishing a 
church of Christ, suiting it to democracy where 
each man must meet God for himself; scholarly 
they were, too, in a large sense, for they read the 
best books of England and studied the journals of 
the day, jealously watching the Old World, that the 
New World of their dreams might not be found 
wanting in intellectual progress. These men founded 
colleges. 

For six generations the Bakers had been in New 
England. Their history is exactly the history of the 



4 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

typical son of New Hampshire. They had swung 
the ax, carried the surveyor's chain, shouldered the 
musket, fought off the savages, and taken part in 
government and the establishing of churches and 
schools. Mark Baker lived on his own farm, a tract 
of five hundred acres inherited with his brother 
James. His father was the largest taxpayer in the 
town. Mark Baker was a justice of the peace for 
his township, a deacon of the church, a school com- 
mitteeman, and for many years chaplain of the state 
militia. His friends were the clergy, the lawyers of 
Concord and surrounding towns, a governor of his 
state, upon whose staff a son served. A future 
president of the United States was an occasional 
guest at his home. But his friends also were astute 
men of business, mill owners, builders, men destined 
to change the character of the state from agricultural 
to manufacturing. 

The family life at Bow was not set in a deadly 
routine of depressing labor. To so conceive it is to 
fail to rise to the true viewpoint which shall help us 
to understand the character we are considering. 
There never was a time in history when a people 
were more alive and progressive than the Americans 
after the War of Independence. There was no 
neighborhood in America more admirably situated to 
reap the full benefit of that peculiar, intense, spiritual 
culture than was the town of Bow, five miles from 
the city of Concord. Franklin Pierce and Daniel 
Webster were reared under these identical condi- 
tions. Emerson and Hawthorne have declared the 
conditions admirable for developing genius. 



ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY 5 

Mary Baker Eddy's ancestry can be traced clearly 
through six generations to the first Baker in America, 
her earliest emigrant ancestor being John Baker, 
who was freeman in Charlestown, Massachusetts, 
in 1634. The generations succeeding, eliminating 
all but the direct line, are Thomas, of Roxbury; 
a second Thomas, of Roxbury, who married Sarah 
Pike; Joseph, born 1714, deacon of the Congrega- 
tional church, who held a captain's commission. 
He was the surveyor of several towns in that part of 
the colony of New Hampshire which was claimed by 
Massachusetts, — among the rest, of Pembroke, 
where he afterwards settled. He married, 1739, 
Hannah Love well, only daughter of Captain John 
Lovewell. Hannah was born 1721, was heir to one 
third the estate of Captain Lovewell and inherited 
with her brothers the lands assigned to her distin- 
guished father in Pembroke. 

Captain Joseph Baker had a son Joseph, born 
1740, who married Marion Moor McNeil, a descend- 
ant of the Scotch Covenanters. They settled in 
Bow. Their youngest son was Mark Baker, born 
1785. He was the father of Mary Baker. So the 
generations run thus : Mary, Mark, Joseph, Joseph, 
Thomas, Thomas, John, — which takes the record 
back almost to Plymouth Rock. 

An examination of the genealogy of the wives of 
the Bakers reveals that the influx was of good blood 
through the maternal strains. The Pikes of New 
England have an honorable and interesting geneal- 
ogy. Hannah Lovewell, great-grandmother of 
Mary Baker and born just one century before her. 



6 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

transmits the courageous heart of her soldier father. 
Captain John Lovewell lost his life in a severe fight 
with the Indians at Pigwacket, now Fryeburg, 
Maine, an encounter so desperate that it is recorded 
in Colonial records and is known as Lovewell's 
Fight. This Lovewell's father was an ensign in 
Cromwell's army and lived to the great age of one 
hundred and twenty years. Hannah Lovewell was 
one of the bravest women of the colonies. 

Marion Moor McNeil, the paternal grandmother 
of Mary Baker, was a descendant of the McNeils of 
Edinburgh. Her father and mother, John McNeil 
and Marion Moor, came to America seeking re- 
ligious liberty and bringing a rich store of memories 
and traditions. They possessed a heavy sword 
encased in a brass scabbard, with the inscription of 
an ancestor's name that stated it had been bestowed 
by Sir William Wallace. General John McNeil of 
New Hampshire, who won distinction by leading a 
bayonet charge in the battle of Chippewa in the War 
of 1812, was a cousin of Marion McNeil Baker. ^ 

^ This is the McNeil connection. I shall not trace it beyond America. 
Fannie McNeil, niece of Franklin Pierce, afterwards wife of Judge Potter of 
Washington, was a daughter of that General John McNeil. She claimed a 
cousinship with Mary Baker Eddy. This Fannie McNeil, who during Pierce's 
administration frequently relieved his invalid wife of social duties as mistress 
of the White House, traced as she supposed the McNeil line to which she be- 
longed directly to Sir John McNeil of Edinburgh. She adopted the McNeil 
crest for her coat of arms. Mrs. Eddy visited her in Washington in 1880. 
Together they made a journey to the grave of General McNeil. They thor- 
oughly discussed the McNeil family history, the bravery of its fighting heroes, 
the deep religious conviction of its covenanting faith. Mrs. Eddy recalled her 
grandmother's influence upon her whole life, an influence which shall presently 
be indicated. She therefore adopted with her cousin, Fannie McNeil, the 
McNeil crest and coat of arms. She adopted it for sentiment and affection. 
Its motto could not have better expressed the traits of character transmitted 



ANCESTRY AND GENEALOGY 7 

Leaving the Baker genealogy for Mrs. Eddy's 
maternal ancestry, in the same history of New 
Hampshire families it is stated that Mark Baker 
married Abigail Ambrose of Pembroke. She was 
the daughter of Deacon Nathaniel Ambrose, a man 
at once pious and public-spirited. He gave the 
money for the first Congregational church built in 
Pembroke. Mrs. Eddy's mother and the grand- 
mother of Hoke Smith, ex-governor of Georgia, and 
later, United States Senator from Georgia, were sis- 
ters. Governor Smith's father wrote the following 
letter at the time of a public discussion of Mrs. 
Eddy's family, a discussion which lacked a proper 
comprehension of the family's standing in its com- 
munity and its honorable connections. Mr. Smith 
sent the letter to the Committee on Publication of 
The Mother Church, which allows this reprint: 

582 West Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Ga., Dec. 28, 1906. 

I have known the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy from 
childhood. She is my first cousin. Her mother 

through a long line to her. It is : Vincere aid Mori. The crest was carved in 
the mahogany of the Untel above the inner vestibule entrance of her beautiful 
home on Commonwealth avenue, Boston, where she resided before her retire- 
ment to Pleasant View. She also used the crest as a seal and expressed her 
pleasure in the sentiment of the Scotch strain by having the coat of arms em- 
broidered on white silk and hung in her Ubrary. 

But a sudden denial to her rights so to enjoy this connection with the Scotch 
McNeils came through a Scottish descendant of the McNeils living in Aber- 
deen. Whereupon Mrs. Eddy had a thorough investigation of her genealogy 
made and being unable to estabUsh the accuracy of Fannie McNeil's genea- 
logical claims, upon which she had hitherto rested, she requested that all 
biographers refrain from connecting her with the Rt. Honorable Sir John 
McNeil, G.C.B., of Edinburgh, sometime ambassador to Persia. It is there- 
fore sufficient to state that Mary Baker Eddy's great-grandparents were 
McNeils; that General John McNeil, the American hero, was her grand- 
mother's cousin. 



8 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

was my mother's younger sister. She [Mary Baker 
Eddy] was always a beloved visitor in our home. 
We corresponded for several years while I was in 
college; the correspondence ended with my regret. 
I have always admired my cousin's sincerity and 
devotion to good works. Her brother Albert was 
one of the ablest lawyers of New Hampshire; but 
Mary was deemed the most scholarly member of 
her family. She has always held a sacred place in 
my heart. It gives me great pleasure to find that 
God is always protecting her. 

H. H. Smith. 



CHAPTER II 

CHILDHOOD DAYS 

rin describing the conditions of life which bred 
New Hampshire giants, w^ith its granite in their 
mil and its hemlock in their soul's fiber, one should 
neglect to indicate the beauty of summer days, or 
the clear, cold magnificence of winter months, in 
that mountainous upland, one would err in stating 
but half-truths of the environing influences, even 
though his efforts were but timid strokes. 

The allurement which drew settlers into this region 
in the early days was doubtless the glorified face of 
Nature. Here was no prairie, easily tilled ; here were 
no gold mines, promising sudden wealth. But there 
was a constant uplift for the heart, vaguely felt more 
often than it was understood. There is an enchant- 
ment in the New Hampshire panorama, the series 
of great pictures which unroll in one continuous 
stretch of glorious scenery, an enchantment so per- 
vading that it is never forgotten. A logger on the 
mountain-side to-day looks down with indifference 
upon a transient tourist. The logger's cup of con- 
tent is full if he can make a bare living in the 
forest. 

Summer spreads for the son of New Hampshire 
a shimmering wonder of green and gold with silver 
rivers winding placidly, fed by those headlong tor- 



10 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

rents farther up in the rocky hills, where the burn- 
ing breasts of the mountains are lifted from their 
headless shoulders. There, too, like Victory's, is 
seen the stride of their sheer descents, throwing back 
the clouds for draperies. This is summer, summer 
of ripening grain fields, summer of odorous, melo- 
dious South winds, balsam-scented and hemlock- 
tuned. 

Autumn's brilliant moment of splendor passes and 
the traveler flees before the sere and drear November, 
gray, brown, and sodden with fog and freezing tears. 
The mountaineer stays and cuts his logs. Now the 
great nature painting of all the seasons is preparing. 
The frost has bitten, the snow has fallen, and once 
more the sun shines forth. Behold the blue peaks, 
lifted above the green of the hemlock and the pine, 
and the dazzling sweep of virgin snow. The air is 
stimulating and purifying. Over this land bends a 
sky which gathers its true sons to her heart, whose 
stars are eloquent, whose storms are majestic, whose 
day-dawns are passionately tender. 

The farmer and the mountaineer of to-day feel 
the divine salute of Nature as did the early settlers 
of the state. They are sustained in their life of toil 
by the same enchantment. But one circumstance 
of life, one sacred influence they have lost, homely 
but potent. That is the fireplace of their ancestors. 
In the living room of the early farmhouses huge logs 
were burned, and this resinous fire, like a pure 
spiritual force subduing nature to the will of man, 
yielded a glory to the homely walls, lighted up the 
faces of the family circle, drawing each member 




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CHILDHOOD DAYS 11 

into a hallowed area, making a sanctified center of 
their existence. 

So it should be realized it was the union of beauty 
and severity that gave to the New Hampshire char- 
acter at its best the giant soul, — giant for wrestling 
toil, giant for deep and long-enduring pain, giant in 
its capacity for thinking and loving. 

Mark Baker's farm in Bow lay on the uplands. 
It was cleared and cultivated by his father and older 
brothers before him. The farmhouse was situated 
on the summit of a hill from which, in gradual un- 
dulations, the land sloped to the Merrimac River. 
The view included three townships and was broad 
and picturesque rather than grand. Mountains 
there are in the distance; but this region of the 
state is scarcely in the foot-hills, though its rugged 
uplift gives promise of the vast range on the far 
horizon. 

The farmhouse faced the East. It was unpainted 
in those days and consisted of a two-story and a half 
main building with a sloping-roofed ell. In the main 
building was the living room with its great fireplace 
and the best chamber adjoining. Above these were 
two chambers and the garret. In the rear were 
kitchen and butteries with chambers above. The 
stables were on the West, so that a long feeding-shed 
connecting them with the house-shed at right angles 
made a windbreak against the North wind for the 
dooryard. This was a sunny spot for the farm 
fowls, and a place also where logs were trimmed, 
horses groomed, and wagons loaded for the market. 



12 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

A sunny garden surrounded the front door in 
which in summer were hlacs and roses and old- 
fashioned marigolds. To the East was the or- 
chard enclosed by a stone wall three feet broad, 
part of which is still intact, though necessarily it has 
been rebuilt and repaired innumerable times. The 
breadth of the walls tells the story of the labor in- 
volved in clearing the farm not only of timber but 
of rocks. Across the road were pastures and grain 
fields, while to the North and beyond the orchard 
and stables were woodlands. 

That the house was well constructed and com- 
fortable was attested by its century-old frame which 
stood swept by storm and brooded over by sun- 
shine on the untenanted lands still belonging to 
Baker descendents until 1910. The sheds were torn 
away and only the shell remained. It was removed 
to a place by itself on the edge of the pasture land, 
and one old apple tree bloomed each spring at the 
chamber window where Mary Baker first saw the 
light and throughout the period of her earthly 
existence. The author ate of its fruit while Mrs. 
Eddy yet resided at Pleasant View. 

The day of her birth was July 16, 1821. Mary 
was the youngest child. Her brothers were Samuel, 
Albert, and George ; her sisters, Abigail and Martha. 
The children were not far apart in years. Albert 
was ten and Abigail scarcely more than six when 
Mary was born. Albert and Abigail, of them all, 
were especially tender to the baby sister, arid in the 
years to come exercised greater care for her, — the 
brother in her education, and the sister during her 
invalid widowhood. 



CHILDHOOD DAYS 13 

A beloved member of the h'ousehold when Mary 
was born w^as the venerable grandmother Baker 
who received this babe into her arms with a special 
solicitation to God. She conferred upon it the name 
Mary, which was her own name and that of her 
mother before her. Grandmother Baker's chair 
stood by the fireplace. She overlooked the farm- 
yard, and its busy occupations when she glanced up 
from her knitting; or, sending her glances out 
through the front door, open on a heated summer 
day, she saw the bees drowsing in the flowers, the 
bending grain beyond where the South winds made 
billows of light and shade. A precious care was in 
her charge. Ever and anon she touched with her 
foot the rocker of the cradle, or bent to scan the 
features of the babe sleeping there "and so through 
the heat of August and the cool September she 
was the good angel w^atching and guarding. 

The household tasks were not light for the mother 
of early New England days; she could not brood 
over a cradle. Mrs. Baker was industrious and 
placid of spirit, and the placidity meant much for 
the spirit of her home. She could brew and bake 
and care for her dairy, scour and sew and weave 
and dye — all women did this in those days — and 
it is reported of Mrs. Baker that she was "capable." 
But Mrs. Baker found time for the unusual, for 
visiting the sick and administering to the needy; 
for entertaining her friends and maintaining the 
social life; for overseeing her children's education 
and holding the family to high spiritual ideals. It 
is not sufficient to say of her that she w^as a capable, 
conscientious New England woman; this she was. 



14 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

but more. And she has left behind her memories 
that attest it. 

Mrs. Baker was one of those rare mothers of that 
period who found time for reading; and when 
guests filled her house, relatives, clergymen, or men 
of affairs, her judgments and observations were 
sought and her influence in conversation was re- 
ported inspiring and uplifting. She was no Penel- 
ope, silent at her own fireside while the guests alone 
enjoyed social discourse. From touching mind and 
heart with these guests while serving them with hos- 
pitable attentions, she deduced ideas for the benefit 
of her children, ideas which she applied to each ac- 
cording to his temperament. After her death her 
clergyman, the Rev. Richard S. Rust, D.D., '*who," 
Mrs. Eddy has said, ''knew my sainted mother in 
all the walks of life," wrote of her as one who pos- 
sessed a presence which made itself felt like gentle 
dew and cheerful light. He said she possessed a 
strong intellect, a sympathizing heart, and a placid 
spirit, and as a mother was untiring in her efforts 
to secure the happiness of her family. 

But the hands of this mother who labored untir- 
ingly were filled with duties in a home made pros- 
perous through personal toil. It was an early Ameri- 
can farm and the farm life hummed industriously 
from early morn until starHght, forwarded by the 
energy and will of both parents. Visible through 
the small-paned windows was the farm's center of 
activity where the father and brothers went to and 
fro, now to the fields and now to the town, removing 
logs and rock, tending sheep and cattle, handling 



"childhood days 15 

grain and fruits. Within the kitchen, mother and 
daughters worked not less continuously, laundry and 
dairy, needle and loom, claiming the attention in 
rhythmic succession. And of all these workers one 
knows the mother was earliest astir and latest to 
rest. 

And so Mary Baker grew through infancy at her 
grandmother's knee and imbibed her grandmother's 
stories and songs; her grandmother's recollections 
and store of spiritual wisdom were poured into the 
hungering mind agape like a young robin's mouth. 
And what stories these were and how they thrilled 
the awakening imagination ! for this grandmother, 
descended from the Scotch Covenanters, could tell 
dramatic tales of a land torn by religious dissen- 
sions for nearly a century. 

We can imagine the little Mary on a certain day 
taken by her grandmother to visit the garret. Up 
the steep stairs they climb together, the baby hand 
confidingly in the brown and wrinkled one. Up 
here under the low-slanting roof, amidst odors of 
lavender, catnip, and sage, in a dusty gray twilight, 
weird because of the stray sunbeams that pierce it, 
grandmother takes from the depths of an old chest 
the sword of a far-away Scottish ancestor, the blade 
rusting in its brass scabbard. The child is allowed 
to handle it, tries to draw the blade, and with great 
eyes hears its history. Then as she still tugs at it, 
grandmother kneeling back on her heels sings in 
quavering accents, ''Scots who hae wi' Wallace 
bled." 

"How long ago was it that Sir William Wallace 



16 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

drove the English out of the highlands and back 
to their own lands?" 

"Five hundred years ago. Yes, for five hundred 
years that sword has been handed down from kins- 
man to kinsman. My father's father's fathers were 
Highlanders, wore the kilt and trampled the purple 
heather and played the bagpipes that summoned 
the clans." 

*'But why did your father and mother leave Scot- 
land, grandmother.^" 

*'We came away for religious liberty, child, that 
we might worship God according to our conscience." 

"But I should not have run away. And I should 
have worshiped God according to my conscience. And 
they could have taken their swords and killed me." 

"Ay, they did that, my bairn; the blood was 
spilled of many a God-fearing man. Your an- 
cestors wrote their names on the covenant in blood, 
and that meant they would keep the covenant with 
their life blood. Ay, dearie, dearie; it was a long 
and bitter and terrible strife, but religion was more 
to our ancestors than their lives." 

"What is religion.?" asks the child, dropping the 
sword and resting her hands on her grandmother's 
shoulders. 

"Religion is to know and worship God." 

And there in the twilight of the garret the child 
fell a wondering, doubtless making then and there 
her covenant, while the grandmother returned to 
rummaging in the old chest which had crossed the 
ocean. Now the grandmother took from the chest 
some old newspapers, yellow with age, together with 



CHILDHOOD DAYS 17 

certain old manuscripts. She carried these down to 
the living room and there on occasions read from 
them various stories to the little girl. 

These stories were of Washington, of Valley Forge, 
of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis, of the farewell 
of the commander-in-chief to his troops, and of the 
death and burial of the first American president. 
The stories made a deep impression on the child's 
mind and she put many questions to her father 
concerning these events, causing the theme of the 
family conversation around the fireside to be set to a 
patriotic key. 

*'I remember," says Mrs. Eddy in "Retrospection 
and Introspection," written at least sixty years after 
these times, *' reading in my childhood certain 
manuscripts containing Scriptural sonnets besides 
other verses and enigmas which my grandmother 
said were written by my great-grandmother. . . . My 
childhood was also gladdened by one of my grand- 
mother Baker's books, printed in olden type and 
replete with the phraseology current in the seven- 
teenth and eighteenth centuries. Among grand- 
mother's treasures were some newspapers yellow 
with age. Some of these, however, were not very 
ancient, nor had they crossed the ocean, for they 
were American newspapers, one of which contained 
a full account of the death and burial of George 
Washington." 

The grandmother cherished the idea that Hannah 
More was a relative in some way to her mother. 
She talked of the pious authoress and of the fact 
that her mother had written the manuscripts she 



18 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

displayed. The family rejected the idea of lela- 
tionship with the English authoress, but Mary, lis- 
tening to these discussions of literary talents inherent 
in the blood of her forebears, early resolved to grow up 
wise enough to write a book. There is no doubt that 
the great resolutions of her life, already infused with 
tenacious qualities of loving and willing, were made 
under the inspiration of the religious grandmother. 

From the reading of these old books and papers 
the child acquired a grave and dignified way of 
speaking. Mary's sayings were quoted frequently, 
in a different spirit, by different members of the 
family. The grandmother would repeat them dot- 
ingly, the father, with grim humor to his guests, and 
her gifted brother, teasingly and lovingly. He was 
at this time preparing for college. 

Mark Baker was too busy a man for much leisure 
with his family, yet he had time to guide each son 
to a successful career. Mary, the youngest daughter 
of the flock, delicate in health from her birth, was 
not easily understood by this man of iron will. She 
perplexed him with her sage sayings and grave 
doings. The strange stories told about this little 
one by the grandmother and mother made him 
wonder sometimes with deep concern. 

The story that most perplexed him was that of 
Mary's *' Voices." When but eight years old Mary 
frequently came to her mother, asking her earnestly 
what she wanted of her. ''Nothing, child," her 
mother would reply. 

"But, mother, who did call me .^" she would be- 
seech. "I heard some one call ' Mary ' three times ! " 



CHILDHOOD DAYS 19 

This assertion that some one was caUing her was 
continually made by the child for nearly a year, 
until her parents grew anxious for her health. 
"Take the books away from her," said her father; 
"her brain is too big for her body." 

Accordingly she was sent to romp in the fields, 
to gather berries and wild flowers along the walls, 
to sing among the bees. She must not hear so many 
exciting tales, or be allowed to brood in fancy. As 
the summer turned into fall she must needs be more 
indoors, but her brother Albert found her on a drear 
November evening, huddled close to the pasture 
wall, singing softly. The noisy pigs were squealing 
in the sty and the child had stolen out from the 
warm fireside to sing to them, thinking they needed 
comfort before they would go to ^leep. Carrying 
her in on his shoulder, her brother deposited her in 
her grandmother's arms, telling merrily of the quaint 
lullaby. 

"But," said the child excitedly, ''they are crying 
and it must be because it's cold and dark out there." 

"God cares for all his creatures, my bairn," said 
the grandmother, soothing and caressing the chilled 
little maiden. 

The voices had not ceased to call the little girl, 
but Mary had ceased to respond to them. Mrs. 
Eddy has told of these persistent callings which 
were heard by her for some twelve months, and in 
her autobiography says : 

One day when my cousin, Mehitable Huntoon, 
was visiting us, and I sat in a little chair by her side, 
in the same room with grandmother, the call again 



20 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

came, so loud that Mehitable heard it, though I 
had ceased to notice it. Greatly surprised, my cousin 
turned to me and said, *' Your mother is calling you ! " 
... I then left the room, went to my mother, and 
once more asked her if she had summoned me. She 
answered as always before. Then I earnestly de- 
clared my cousin had heard the voice and said that 
mother wanted me. Accordingly she returned with 
me to grandmother's room, and led my cousin to 
an adjoining apartment. The door was ajar and 
I listened with bated breath. Mother told Mehitable 
all about this mysterious voice and asked if she 
really did hear Mary's name pronounced in audi- 
ble tones. My cousin answered quickly and em- 
phasized her affirmations. That night before going 
to rest my mother read to me the Scriptural narra- 
tive of little Samuel, and bade me, when the voice 
called again, to reply as he did, *' Speak, Lord, for 
thy servant heareth." The voice came; but I was 
afraid, and did not answer. Afterward I wept, and 
prayed that God would forgive me, resolving to 
do next time as my mother had bidden me. When 
the call came again, I did answer in the words of 
Samuel, and never again to the material senses was 
that mysterious call repeated.^ 

What wisdom and love in this spiritual-minded 
mother, causing her to guide her child into the full 
benefit of her first deep religious experience ! She 
did not contradict, rebuke, or deride; but guided 
gently part of the way, then left the child to go up 
alone to that mount of sacred experience which no 
two human beings, however tender thei^ relation, 
can ascend together. 

^ "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 17. 



CHAPTER III 

EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 

np HOUGH we instinctively give heredity and 
^ natural environment a close scrutiny, and in 
viewing a character are prone to believe these to be 
principal formative agents; we still fancy we behold 
how destiny strikes through circumstances, and 
grasping a life, drags it root and all from its soil 
and culture to replant it for its great development. 
We shall see how Love inspired Mary Baker and 
drew her tenderly out of Puritanism to fit her for 
leadership in a warfare against rnaterialism. 

All the Baker children went to school at the cross- 
roads, about a mile from the farmhouse on the way 
to Concord. When Mary began her schooling, her 
oldest brother, Samuel, with New England perti- 
nacity, had gone to Boston to learn the trade of 
mason, from which he steadily developed into a con- 
tractor and builder of considerable importance. He 
built many brick buildings and rows of houses 
which stood long in Boston. Her brother Albert en- 
tered Dartmouth College when Mary was nine and 
returned home when she was thirteen. He studied 
law with Franklin Pierce at Hillsborough, and later 
spent a year in the office of Richard Fletcher of 
Boston and was admitted to the bar in both Mas- 
sachusetts and New Hampshire. The youngest 



22 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

brother was also through with the district school 
when Mary began her formal studies. 

Abigail, Martha, and Mary trudged to school 
alone along the country roads, their brother George 
calling to fetch them home in stormy weather. It 
soon developed that Mary could not endure the 
severe routine of the district schoolroom where rest- 
less farmers' children, with noisily shuffling feet, 
droned through their lessons, and indulged in occa- 
sional rude pranks that ended in birchings. The 
ungraded district schools were at that time over- 
crowded and nerve-straining to pupil and teacher 
alike. 

Mary, who could not endure to hear the calves 
bawl or the pigs squeal in their own farmyard without 
an effort to comfort them, was depressed or excited 
by the turbulence of school life. She was therefore 
soon taken out of that experience and went on with 
her books at home. The grandmother, full of years, 
had passed out of the home scene and Mary now 
came directly under the guidance and observation 
of her mother and also saw her father more freely 
now that the boys were away. Her mother she 
thought a saint, her father an embodied intellect 
and will. 

Her father would enter the house from his farm 
work, his mind abstracted with business purposes, 
and would seat himself at the old secretary to write 
for an hour or arrange papers from his strong box. 
He was called upon to do much business for his 
town, making out deeds and settling disputes. Up 
to the front door would drive two wrangling farmers 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT^ 23 

with a grievance. Mary, a shy spectator, beheld her 
father's unvarying courtesy, his stern repression of 
profanity or angry speech. On one occasion when 
his judgment was not accepted and one of the dis- 
putants angrily protested, the child from her corner, 
imitating her father's dignified bearing, though in 
the soft voice of her mother, interpolated, ''Mr. 
Bartlett, why do you articulate so vociferously.'^" 

The unexpected rebuke coming from a child 
and in such unfamiliar words, caused a burst of 
laughter, followed by general good humor and the 
neighbors departed in peace. ''Mary settled that 
quarrel," said her father with his grim smile, and 
for years after her speech was quoted whenever a 
turbulent social spirit threatened the general 
harmony. 

Often the minister from Pembroke, ^'Priest" 
Burnham, as he was called, the man who was active 
in founding Pembroke Academy, would drive up 
to the farm to discuss with Mark Baker church 
matters, prolonging his visit to elucidate the faulty 
doctrine of a rebellious parishioner. Condemning all 
such to eternal judgment with theological satisfac- 
tion, the clergyman would offer prayer, after which, 
before departing, he would accept with benign gra- 
ciousness the hospitality Mr. Baker would offer 
him at the corner cupboard. Mary watched such 
scenes with the gravest interest and remembered 
them vividly in after years, not without a peculiar 
relish of humor. Her father was a great churchman 
and often visited "backsliders" with this same 
"Priest" Burnham, to labor with them in matters 



24 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of conscience, and presently she herself became the 
object of such solicitation. 

Among the visitors that came to their home was 
Governor Benjamin Pierce. He had served through 
the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 and 
attained the rank of Major- General. He was twice 
governor of New Hampshire. Mark Baker was 
chaplain of the state militia, and a figure of some 
consequence in politics. Their politics were con- 
genial, both being ardent Democrats and advocates 
of states rights. The old general sometimes brought 
with him on his drives to Bow his granddaughter, 
Fanny McNeil, who was related to the Bakers 
through her father, and while Mark Baker and the 
governor talked politics, the women discussed more 
congenial topics. 

Mary liked best to listen to the weightier con- 
versation, especially when it touched the welfare of 
some one dear to her heart. Once she heard the 
governor laughing merrily with her father over the 
way Mark Baker had got the best of his son, Frank- 
lin, in a lawsuit involving the towns of Loudon and 
Bow over a question of pauperism. 

*'You are not a lawyer, and yet my son says 
you beat him with your arguments," said the 
governor. 

''He bore his defeat in good spirit and offered me 
his congratulations," replied her father. "He is a 
magnetic young man destined for great things. It is 
gratifying in these days of general bad manners to 
have an opponent of such courtesy and good-will. 
He swept me a bow like a soldier saluting his com- 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 25 

mander-in-chief — no less ; and then shook hands 
with me hke a kinsman." 

''And kinsmen we are in some sort, they tell me. 
See here, Mr. Baker, send your son Albert to see us 
when he comes home again. Get him into politics 
right ! he can't understand these matters too young, 
and Franklin is a zealous Democrat, you know." 

Somewhat later Albert made a visit to the Pierces', 
and he, the undergraduate, formed a sincere and 
devoted attachment for the future president. Some- 
thing about the young man attracted Franklin 
Pierce to him. He reminded him, no doubt, of that 
other devoted friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne, his 
college mate at Bowdoin. Perhaps it was young 
Baker's passion for abstract metaphysics. 

*'When you've finished college, come to me," 
Franklin Pierce said in parting, "and I'll start you 
reading law." 

The next time Mark Baker was in Concord, the 
governor entertained him at dinner. Governor 
Pierce, the politician, was pleased at the prospect of 
a close alliance with an old family of such wide rami- 
fications as the Bakers of Bow and Pembroke with 
their numerous voters, and in signification of his 
satisfaction offered Mr. Baker a gold-headed walk- 
ing-stick as he was leaving. Mr. Baker declined it, 
saying he never used a cane. His pride was as un- 
bending as his rugged figure, which he carried erect 
to his grave. 

The love between Albert Baker and his youngest 
sister was most tender, and she beheld these ar- 
rangements for his future with an interest beyond 



26 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

her years. She had seen him leave for college with a 
pang of desolation, and now with what impatience 
she watched with face pressed against the pane for 
his first return home ! 

When he finally came he caught her up, the frail 
little girl of nine, and set her once more on his shoul- 
der to queen it through the house. 

''Mother," he said, "Mary is as beautiful as an 
angel." 

''Well, my son," said the good mother; "she is 
as gentle and sweet-tempered as one." 

"Now, little sister, tell me about the books," was 
his first question, when he had kissed her cheeks and 
stood her before him at the old secretary. "Have 
they let you have the books again.?" 

Vibrating with the bliss of having again with her 
this beloved brother, she leaned upon his breast and 
looked up into his face with eyes like dewy violets. 
She clasped and unclasped her hands around his 
neck and nestled to his heart. The excess of her 
emotional nature disquieted him vaguely. Here 
was no farm girl's prosaic temperament. 

"Now tell your brother," said he, holding her 
gently, for he felt again what he had forgotten, how 
fragile and gentle she was, how like a flower that 
might be crushed. It was a moment of rare inti- 
macy, such as seldom occurs between members of the 
same family, except with highly organized natures. 
It was moreover a moment which yielded important 
results in her after life. 

Standing before him, she explained all her heart 
with shy candor; how it was that she loved him so 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 27 

because he was brave and honorable and a scholar ; 
how she recognized his bravery because he had per- 
sisted in his determination to go to college ; and his 
honor, because he had never cried out against the 
hardship of labor that went hand in hand with his 
studies. 

*'And I want very much to be a scholar, too," 
she said. 

"A scholar, and why, little sister.^" 

''Because when I grow up I shall write a book; 
and I must be wise to do it. I must be as great a 
scholar as you or Mr. Franklin Pierce. Already 
I have read Young's * Night Thoughts,' and I 
understand it." 

''Well, sister," said Albert Baker seriously, "we 
will have this for a secret and I will teach you. You 
are still a very little girl, you know ; but study your 
grammar and my Latin grammar. Next summer 
when I'm home I will teach you to read Latin. 
Does that make you happy ? " 

Ah, the deep embrace when Mary flung herself 
into her brother's arms ! Albert Baker was true to 
his word. He taught his sister during all his vaca- 
tions. Mrs. Eddy has said that at ten she was as 
familiar with Lindley Murray as with the West- 
minster Catechism which she had studied with her 
sisters every Sunday since her babyhood. During 
the four years of her brother's undergraduate work 
she read with him moral science, natural philosophy, 
and mastered the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew gram- 
mars. He was an able teacher and she an apt pupil. 
A friend wrote of him after his death that he was 



28 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

*'fond of investigating abstruse metaphysical prin- 
ciples and schooled himself by intense and incessant 
study." Mary corresponded with her brother and 
also with her cousin who was at college and her fame 
gradually spread as a young prodigy of learning 
whose writing fell naturally into poetry and whose 
thought was forever brooding on spiritual matters. 

In spite of her intelligence, Mary Baker's spiritual 
experiences continued to be grave and unusual, as 
had been her "Voices." She was what her family 
thought morbidly devout, reading her Bible with 
absorbed interest, making its characters the familiar 
friends of her mind. When she discovered that 
Daniel prayed seven times daily, she formed the 
habit of doing so likewise. A curious fact is that she 
kept a record of these prayers in order to examine 
herself from time to time to learn if she had im- 
proved in grace. This was kept up through a num- 
ber of years and w^as doubtless her first effort at 
composition. Her phrases were formed on the style 
of the psalmist and the prophets. So, when with his 
cousin, Albert commented on the unusual diction of 
Mary's letters, he declared he could only account 
for it by the habit she had of constantly reading her 
Bible and writing and rewriting prayers in emula- 
tion of David. 

Her religious experience reached a grave crisis 
when she was twelve years of age, though she did 
not unite with the church until five years later at 
Sanbornton Bridge. While still in Bow, writing and 
studying, her father's relentless theology was alarmed 
at her frequent expression of confidence in God's 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 29 

love. He held to a hard and bitter doctrine of pre- 
destination and believed that a horrible decree of 
endless punishment awaited sinners on a final 
judgment day. 

Whether it was logic and moral science taught 
her by her brother, or the trusting love instilled by 
her mother who had guided her to yield herself to 
the voice of God within her, Mary resisted her 
father on the matter of ''unconditional election." 
Beautiful in her serenity and immovable in her 
faith, the daughter sat before the stern father of the 
iron will. His sires had signed a covenant in blood 
and would he not wrestle with this child who dared 
the wrath of God ? 

And well he did wrestle and the home was filled 
with his torrents of emotion. But though Mary 
might have quoted to him her own baby speech, she 
was too respectful and his ''vociferations" went 
unrebuked. It is a remarkable thing to note, the 
conscience of a child in defense of its faith. Can 
any one suppose it an easy thing to resist a father so 
convicted with belief in dogma, a father, too, whom 
all their world honored and heeded ? We may be 
sure it was not easy; that, indeed, to do so tor- 
tured this httle child's heart. But Mark Baker 
was acting according to his conscience, and the 
child knew it and respected him. She did not view 
this struggle of consciences as a quarrel, and repu- 
diated all her life the idea that she ever quarreled 
with her father. 

The notion went abroad, however, that Mark 
Baker and his daughter Mary were at variance over 



30 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

religion. The silly gossip of their world reported 
that she would not study her catechism. They said 
that Mary had a high temper for all her learning, 
she of whom her mother had said, ''When do you 
ever see Mary angry .^" They even said that Mr. 
Baker had reported in his anguish to his clergyman, 
"If Mary Magdalene had seven devils, our Mary 
has ten." The struggle, it may be seen, was no 
casual argument, but a deep wrestle of souls. At 
last the child succumbed to an illness and the family 
doctor was summoned. When Mark Baker drove 
to fetch him his religious intemperance must have 
given way to paternal affection and fear. He is said 
to have stood up in his wagon and lashed his horse, 
crying out to a neighbor who accosted him that 
Mary was dying. 

The physician declared Mary stricken with fever. 
He left medicines, recommending her to her 
mother's most watchful care and admonishing her 
father to desist from discussions. Mrs. Eddy has 
said of what followed: 

My mother, as she bathed my burning temples, 
bade me lean on God's love, which would give me 
rest if I went to Him in prayer, as I was wont to do, 
seeking His guidance. I prayed; and a soft glow 
of ineffable joy came over me. The fever was gone 
and I rose and dressed myself in a normal condition 
of health. Mother saw this and was glad. The 
physician marveled; and the "horrible decree" of 
Predestination — as John Calvin rightly called his 
own tenet — forever lost its power over me. ^ 

^ "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 22. 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 31 

It is true that Mary Baker made a religious pro- 
fession at this time. She was examined at the age of 
twelve by the pastor who eagerly put to her the 
usual ** doleful questions," declaring that he must 
be assured that she had been truly regenerated. 
With the eyes of the church members upon her and 
her own father's haggard face visible from his place 
in their family pew, she answered without a tremor : 

"I can only say in the words of the psalmist, 
* Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, 
and know my thoughts; and see if there be any 
wicked way in me, and lead me in the way ever- 
lasting. ' " 

Her childish, but resolute figure, and the grave 
words so earnestly spoken, brought about a reaction 
in her favor and the oldest church members wept. 
Her pastor relented toward her and the ordeal was 
over. However, it was not until the age of seven- 
teen that she united with the Congregational 
church. 

The circumstances of her struggle with her father 
made a profound impression on her and the watch- 
ful love of her mother saw fit to send her on a visit 
to a friend in the suburbs of Boston under the care 
of her brother Samuel. These friends received her 
with kindness and sought to draw her thoughts 
away from serious questions with bright entertain- 
ment and pleasant diversion. That they did not 
entirely succeed is shown in some of her verses 
written at this time in which, while she shows a rap- 
turous love of nature, she declares that all this is the 
poet's world-wish and only a shadow hastening 



82 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

away. She asserts, however, that hope Ufts the 
thought to ''soar above matter and fasten on God," 
which at this very early age presaged her future 
rehgious revelation in no uncertain outUne. 

The entrance of Albert Baker into Franklin 
Pierce's law office at Hillsborough; his absorption 
into the politics of that region which he represented 
in the New Hampshire legislature for two succes- 
sive terms; the establishment of Samuel Baker in 
business in Boston ; and the desire of George Baker 
to enter the cloth mills of Sanbornton Bridge are 
various reasons which caused Mark Baker to remove 
from Bow to the mill town eighteen miles north of 
Concord. He relinquished his share of the title in 
the Bow property to his brothers' children and 
bought a farm about a mile from Tilton. 

The Baker home life now became more social 
and less patriarchal. Mary was fifteen, her sisters, 
Martha and Abigail, eighteen and twenty. All three 
sisters were notable for their beauty and good 
breeding. The mother's agreeable temperament, 
together with her hospitable nature no less than 
Mr. Baker's great interest in public affairs, drew 
many guests to this house in which the family lived 
for seven years. Mr. Baker became prominent in 
the church with which he and his wife very soon 
united. He conducted the ''third meeting" and 
George Baker led the village choir. George was now 
established in Alexander Tilton's mill and rose 
rapidly to become a mill agent and later a partner 
of the owner, who before that time had married his 
sister Abigail. 




THE CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH AT TILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Mrs. Eddy was a member of this church for many years and taught a class 
in the Sunday-school 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 33 

A frequent guest of the family was Professor Dyer 
H. Sanborn, who kept a private school to which the 
children of the wealthier families were sent to finish 
their studies. Boys were prepared by him for col- 
lege and girls were given a certificate of graduation 
with academic honors. Mary Baker became his 
pupil and graduated from this school. Professor 
Sanborn was the author of a grammar and a man of 
literary tastes. He trained Mary particularly in 
rhetoric and corrected the faults which private study 
had engendered. 

The Rev. Enoch Corser, pastor of the Tilton 
church for all the period of their residence at the 
farm, was also a frequent and honored guest of the 
Bakers. He was a man of liberal culture as may be 
imagined from the fact that he privately tutored his 
son Bartlett, sending him to college prepared to elim- 
inate the first two years of Greek, Latin, and mathe- 
matics. This was Mary Baker's pastor who first 
received her into communion. His son has declared 
his father's disposition toward her to be one of high- 
est esteem, deep admiration, and warm interest. 
This pastor regarded Mary as his special pupil and 
the brightest he ever had. 

An intellectual comradeship grew up between Mary 
and her pastor who, as his son declared, preferred 
to talk with her to any one of his acquaintance. 
They discussed subjects too deep to be attractive 
to other members of the family, which the family 
freely and good-humoredly admitted. Walking up 
and down in the garden, this fine, old-school clergy- 
man and the young poetess, as she was coming to be 

3 



34 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

called, threshed out the old philosophic speculations 
without rancor or irritation. 

He was a fine-looking old Calvinist, with leonine 
head covered with a mane of silver, and shaggy 
brows beneath which rolled eyes of eloquence and 
compassion. His mouth was wide but firm, sug- 
gesting both humor and melancholy. His shoulders 
had the scholar's droop. One can picture them of a 
fine summer evening, the slender girl and the old 
scholar, on their usual promenade in the garden. 
She must have declared to him something from her 
philosophy, — perhaps that one drop of divine love 
melted his eternal hells. As she looked up at her 
pastor, her great blue eyes poured sunshine upon 
him and she smiled with such radiance that he was 
struck dumb in the midst of his defense of Hades. 
They would be by the willows which long remained 
a vital relic of the old place, and below them rolled 
the valley with the villalge nestling there in the 
summer twilight. 

*'Mary, your poetry goes beyond my theology," 
cried her pastor; "why should I preach to you !" 

As they turned they encountered his son Bartlett 
and Abigail ; for Bartlett was a suitor for Abigail's 
hand and she once pinned a rose on his coat in this 
garden. It is possible that both men were uplifted 
as they walked down the hill from the Baker home, 
and that it was then the father, halting his son with 
a hand on his shoulder, declared to him what he at 
some time certainly said: ''Bright, good, and pure, 
aye brilliant ! I never before had a pupil with such 
depth and independence of thought. She has some 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 35 

great future, mark that. She is an intellectual and 
spiritual genius." 

The young man may not have marked it then, ab- 
sorbed in his thoughts of the other sister. But he 
lived to remember it and to pay tribute to that genius 
by recalling his father's words. He never married 
or entered a profession. His father left him well off 
in lands and money, and with his two maiden sisters 
he lived for years at Boscawen, a village between 
Tilton and Concord made famous by Daniel Web- 
ster, He was a country gentleman of literary 
tastes and hospitable habits. Abigail, after re- 
jecting him, married Alexander Tilton, a wealthy 
mill owner, and became the great lady of the town. 
Martha, after teaching for a time in the academy, 
married a state warden. 

While Mary was attending the academy an inci- 
dent occurred which was long related by old resi- 
dents of Tilton. A lunatic, escaped from the asylum 
at Concord, invaded the school yard, brandishing a 
club and terrifying the children who ran shrieking 
into the house. Mary Baker advanced toward him, 
and the children, peering through the windows, saw 
him wield the club above her head. Their blood 
tingled with horror for they expected her to be 
struck down before their eyes. Not so. She walked 
straight up to the man and took his disengaged 
hand. The club descended harmlessly to his side. 
At her request he walked with her to the gate and 
so, docilely, away. On the following Sunday he 
reappeared and quietly entered the church. He 
walked to the Baker pew and stood beside Mary 



36 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

during the hymn singing. Afterwards he allowed 
himself to be taken in charge without resistance. 

Mary Baker must have been a gladsome sight in 
that grim old meeting-house. She has been described 
as slender and graceful, with a shower of chestnut 
curls, delicate, refined features, and great blue eyes 
that on occasion of unwonted interest became al- 
most black. She wore a fashionable mantle over her 
silk gown and the bonnet of the period which came 
around her face, relieved with a delicate ruching of 
white. Her curls escaped from the bonnet and 
shaded cheeks which were so glowing they rivaled 
the rose. She taught the infants' class in the Sun- 
day-school and an elderly lady in Boston who was 
in that class related to the author: 

'*She always wore clothes we admired. We liked 
her gloves and fine cambric handkerchief. She was, 
as I have come to understand, exquisite, and we 
loved her particularly for her daintiness, her high- 
bred manners, her way of smiling at us, and her 
sweet musical voice." Indeed, in those days her 
name might have been sung for that of Annie Laurie 
in the old ballad, so beautifully did her girlhood 
culminate. 

Within two years two events transpired which 
broke forever the old home circle, and changed Mary 
from girlhood to womanhood. In 1841 Albert 
Baker was nominated for Congress in a district 
where nomination by his party insured election. 
Before that came to pass he died at the age of thirty- 
one. His death was regarded as a calamity by his 
party, and his family felt it as a blow to their great- 



EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT 37 

est ambition. Of Mary's grief it is sufficient to say- 
that this brother was, after her mother, the dearest 
of her kindred. She had developed as a flower in 
his heart. It was well for her that another love came 
to break a too long-continued sorrow. 

George Washington Glover, formerly of Concord, 
had been associated with Samuel Baker in Boston 
and with him learned the first step in his business, 
that of a contractor and builder. He was now es- 
tablished at Charleston, South Carolina. He visited 
Tilton with Samuel Baker and fell deeply in love 
with the young sister. He was an impetuous wooer 
and won Mary Baker's heart. 



CHAPTER IV 

CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT 

MARY BAKER and George Washington Glover 
were married two weeks before the Christmas 
of 1843 at the farmhouse near Tilton by her be- 
loved pastor, Dr. Corser. There was a wedding 
party and all the notables of the neighborhood and 
guests from Concord and even Boston attended. 
Roaring fires greeted the arriving sleighing parties 
and there were feasting and merriment. Mark 
Baker saw all his children around him at this 
wedding, save the lamented Albert, and felt that all 
were well launched in life. Samuel was there from 
Boston, with his wife, a missionary in her teens to the 
Indians. Abigail, who had been married six years, 
was present with her husband, Alexander Tilton. 
Martha with her husband, Luther Pillsbury of Con- 
cord, and George Baker, still unmarried, were there. 
Surrounded by five children, four of whom were 
well married, Mark Baker was justified in believing 
that his name and blood would go down to posterity 
enriched, strengthened, honored. There was to be, 
however, no permanent issue, save through the 
medium of that frailest and youngest, the flower-like 
girl, who, in her bridal garments, clung to his arm 
as they walked down the stairs of the old-fashioned 
house. She alone, holding her father back at the 



CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT 39 

parlor door for one parting embrace and long look in 
his eyes, was to insure him a third and a fourth 
generation and to make his name known throughout 
the world. 

Her father might well have looked at her with 
paternal pride on her wedding day. He had dowered 
her with beauty, educated her with care, gathered 
her safely into the church, clothed her delicately and 
without parsimony. As finely and nobly bred was 
she as any bride who ever left her father's home in 
all New England. Yet could this father have 
looked into the future he would have foreseen that 
his daughter Mary would yet reject his religious 
dogmas, his political ideas, his wealth and family 
pride, — that she would one day depart from them 
all with a more significant departure than this of 
going forth as a bride. 

The young husband and wife left immediately for 
the South. George Glover had a promising business 
in Charleston, South Carolina. During the four 
years he lived there, from 1839 to 1844, he made 
thirteen conveyances of property and two were 
made to him. These acts involved several thousand 
dollars, as the registry of deeds of that city discloses. 
He owned a few slaves and employed a number of 
men in his building ventures. One of the first 
things Mrs. Glover endeavored to influence her 
young husband to do was to free his slaves. 

With change of environment the whole question 
of slavery became a real and terrible one to her, and 
no longer merely a political issue as it was con- 
sidered by the Bakers, the Tiltons, the Pierces, in 



40 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

New Hampshire. A young colored woman who 
worked in a boarding-house of the city (as was re- 
lated by a Boston woman sojourning there) had 
stolen a shawl, and though she gave it up, she 
was taken to the sugar house and whipped. Her 
screams were audible on the road. George Glover 
could not drive out with his wife on a pleasant 
evening through the magnolia- lined avenues of the 
"'Queen City of the South" and be certain that she 
would not see or hear some such evidence of the 
inhuman side of slavery. It was thus that the issue 
was made real to her. 

The question of freeing his slaves was frequently 
debated between them, Mr. Glover explaining to his 
wife that it had been made illegal to do so in South 
Carolina by a statute passed in 1820, and only by 
special act of the legislature could slaves be made 
absolutely free. Her answer to this was that she 
had learned of some instances where masters allowed 
their slaves to depart of their own free will. Then 
her husband argued to her that it would be a loss 
of property for him to free his slaves as he had 
accepted them in payment of debts, and very likely 
would have to do so again. But Mrs. Glover was 
insistent that to own a human being was to live in a 
state of sin. Glover was young, prosperous, had 
large contracts ahead of him, and so thought 
seriously of yielding to her persuasions. Events 
soon took the necessity of decision out of his hands 
and left it to his wife, who decided with charac- 
teristic moral acumen. 

It was June of the summer following their mar- 



CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT 41 

riage. Mr. Glover had a contract for supplying 
building material for a cathedral to be erected in 
Haiti and on this business went to Wilmington, 
North Carolina. Because of her unique position in 
her new social surroundings, not only as an advo- 
cate of abolition in conversation, but one who had 
dared to write on the subject for the local papers, 
he took his young wife with him. He feared, indeed, 
to leave her behind, for she was in delicate health 
and impressionable to the excitement of high 
argument. 

In Wilmington they found yellow fever raging and 
the city in a panic. Mr. Glover endeavored to 
forward his business for a speedy departure ; but he 
was himself suddenly stricken with the fever and 
survived but nine days. During his illness his 
young wife was excluded by his brother Masons 
from the perilous task of nursing him. Mr. Glover 
was a member of Saint Andrew's Lodge, No. 10, and 
of Union Chapter, No. 3, of Royal Arch Masons, and 
his need in this hour brought a quick response from 
members of the order. In his delirium he con- 
stantly talked of his wife, of his hopes through her, 
and of his business plans which he now saw blasted. 
When he knew he was dying, he begged his brother 
Masons to see his wife safe to her father's home in 
the North. His request was carried out faithfully. 

George Glover was interred with Masonic rites in 
the Episcopal cemetery of Wilmington. His business 
associates and members of the lodge followed his 
body to the grave and then strove to do all that was 
possible for his widow's comfort. For a month 



42 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Mrs. Glover was entertained in the home of these 
cordial Southerners, made more than friends by the 
calamity of the hour. They did all that kinsmen 
could have done. They converted his business 
interests into as large a sum of money as possible 
and an escort was selected to accompany her to her 
home. She had already communicated with her 
family, and her brother George met them in New 
York City. 

Mrs. Glover had brought with her a considerable 
sum of money, but her husband's business, as may 
be readily understood from the nature of it, fell to 
pieces at his death. Now it was that she permitted 
his slaves to go free, unwilling to accept for herself 
the price of a human life. No record exists of this 
transaction because of the statutes on emancipation, 
which existed in South Carolina until the proclama- 
tion of President Lincoln. Mr. Baker, though a 
Democrat, and opposed to the policies of the aboli- 
tionists, was no lover of slavery and he upheld his 
daughter in this sacrifice of property. 

Mrs. Glover was received with tenderness by her 
parents and given her girlhood room again, a 
spacious and comfortable chaitiber in which she had 
so lately donned her wedding veil. It was August, 
and she had escaped from the tropic heat of the 
South to her native mountain air. She breathed 
deep drafts at her window, looking out over the 
familiar valley. But there was in her eyes a look of 
loneliness, a look of fear, and they were often wide 
and startled, as those of one who sees a vision. 

In September she gave birth to a son whom she 



CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT 43 

named after his father. Mrs. Glover's Kfe for a time 
was despaired of. She was far too ill to nurse her 
child and Mark Baker carried the infant to the 
home of Amos Morrison, a locomotive builder, 
whose wife had given birth to twins a few days 
before George Glover was born. Of these one had 
died, leaving the mother with a little girl, Asenath. 
This mother took Mary's child to her breast with 
her own and both thrived. 

Mahala Sanborn, daughter of a blacksmith, was 
engaged to nurse Mrs. Glover, but her father would 
sit for long hours by his daughter's bed, often taking 
her in his arms and rocking her gently like a child. 
The roads were strewn with tan-bark and straw, 
and the house was hushed as if death had invaded 
it. When the long struggle for life ended in a feeble 
victory and the babe was brought home again, the 
young mother was very happy. Her widowed 
heart found comfort in maternal expression. He 
was a vigorous, robust infant, and to her had the 
eyes and smile of his father. But it seemed she was 
too tender and too devoted, too weak physically to 
exercise a mother's care, and when she had over- 
taxed herself her parents would send little George 
home with Mahala Sanborn, or it may be they 
merely permitted the spinster nurse to take him, 
indulging her fondness. This was not well, as later 
events proved. 

A significant fact in relation to the child's infancy 
is found in the birth of another grandson to Mark 
Baker a few months later. Abigail Tilton's first 
child was born in June of the following year and she 



44 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

named it Albert, in memory of the lamented brother. 
This boy was very handsome as was also a daughter, 
Evelyn, born a few years later. Both were delicate, 
nervous children, while George Glover was quite the 
reverse. Sturdy, hearty, and romping, this child of 
Mary's made the house ring with his demands. 
When Abigail was there with her baby, to the smithy 
little George must go to stay with Mahala, and to 
the smithy he went with the Tiltons' coachman, and 
there his spirits were not constrained, nor was his 
childish nature subdued to its proper walk in life. 
Thus without her consent, at the very outset, was the 
mother's influence over her child lost. 

George Baker was still living at home and Abigail 
came out to the farm nearly every day. George and 
Mr. Tilton were rapidly making a fortune. They 
had been manufacturing cassimeres and tweeds for 
eight years and were about to install new machinery, 
lease a new mill, and otherwise branch out. They 
were persuading their father to build a handsome 
house in town, near to the Tiltons, a house in 
Colonial style, of very comfortable proportions. He 
was placing his savings in other investments than 
crops through his son's and son-in-law's advice, 
such as workmen's houses for rents, and railroad 
stocks. He was more and more interested in 
politics, and much pleased when George Baker was 
made a colonel on the Governor's staff. His towns- 
men now called him Squire, in recognition of his 
growing wealth and influence. 

As in the case with most prosperous persons, the 
sense of executive power made Abigail and George 






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CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT 45 

wish to regulate the Uves of those dear to them. 
They were a bit impatient of that quiet unfoldment 
of destiny which was now deaUng with their sister 
Mary. They could not help discussing her future. 
They would have liked some definite arrangement 
for her, especially about her child. 

But Mary was performing a sacred duty under 
their unseeing eyes. While the family talked of 
Til ton's tweed, the new Darling mill, workmen's 
cottages, and the spur of railroad that would 
facilitate the shipping, — affairs of such importance 
in the advancement of the family that their discus- 
sion came into the family circle, — Mary's discern- 
ing eyes were watching her mother, for her mother 
was dying. The daughter was receiving the content 
of the mother's stored-up spiritual treasury and was 
assisting at the loosening of the earth fetters. 

Mrs. Baker had enjoyed the new home in town 
less than a year. She did not bear the transplanting 
from her rural life. In November, 1849, she died, 
and her death caused some important changes in 
the life which flowed around her youngest child. 
George Baker married Martha Drew Rand a few 
months before his mother's death and went to 
Baltimore to establish himself in mills in that city. 
About a year later, in the fall of 1850, Mark Baker 
married Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson Duncan, a well- 
to-do widow, whose brother was an influential man 
of affairs in New York and a lieutenant-governor of 
that state. These events occurred five years after 
Mrs. Glover returned to her father's house a widow. 

Now Mrs. Glover had not been idle all these 



46 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

years. Although in deUcate health, she had em- 
ployed her pen in writing and at the request of the 
Hon. Isaac Hill prepared political articles for the 
New Hampshire Patriot, published at Concord. 
She wrote on various subjects, but especially on 
slavery from her experiences in the South. Her 
political views were somewhat different from her 
father's and their views were to diverge more and 
more as the Civil War drew nigh. She also taught 
as a substitute instructor in the New Hampshire 
Conference Seminary, in which her old teacher. 
Dyer Sanborn, was now a professor. The Rev. 
Richard S. Rust, principal of the seminary, was so 
pleased with her work that he recommended to her 
that she open an infants' school. 

Mrs. Glover did this as an educational experi- 
ment. Her school w^as an early attempt to introduce 
kindergarten methods. It met with much criticism, 
as did all such experiments, in the early days in New 
England. So the experiment was one of brief duration. 
The substitution of love for harshness as a means 
of discipline, interest for compulsion as a method of 
imparting knowledge, was held up to derision by the 
hard-headed element of the community. And hard- 
headedness had a very great advantage in New 
England in those days. Hard-headedness was the 
critic of things in general. It was inclined to con- 
sider culture in a woman mincing affectation, very 
readily agreeing that she gave herself airs, and to be 
''stuck up" in a New England village, as Margaret 
Deland says, was next to being a heretic. It was 
not very easy, with such biting winds of criticism 



CHANGE AND BEREAVEMENT 47 

blowing, for an idealist to keep the lilies growing in 
the garden of the heart. It is not difficult to perceive 
why Mrs. Glover soon closed her infants' school. 

A very few months of living alone with her father 
and little son had passed when the talk of the 
family circle broached the idea of a new mistress for 
Mr. Baker's house. Those who knew Mary Baker 
best at this time declare she was the soul of gentle- 
ness, patience, and humility. She had no resistance 
to offer to plans which were likely vitally to affect 
her. Passive and gentle, she heard the family 
planning and arranging. But suddenly she caught 
the trend of a new argument and then she did offer 
resistance. Mahala Sanborn, the spinster nurse, 
was to marry Russell Cheney of Groton, some 
thirty or forty miles away in the mountains. And 
Mahala, who was attached to little George, wanted 
to take the child with her to her new home. 

"What, take my little son!" the mother cried. 
"Abigail, you wouldn't think of it ! Father, do you 
hear.? Why, I couldn't see him for months. It 
would break my heart. Indeed, indeed it would ! " 

Nevertheless, the child was let go. One has no 
doubt it was done for kindness, as the stern New 
Englander of those days understood kindness; no 
doubt it was believed to be necessary and right and 
just. The new mistress of the home was coming. 
Mary was to live with Abigail, at least for the present. 
Now little George was five and Abigail's child was 
four. No doubt it was necessary to make due pro- 
vision for every one's peace and happiness, for 
every one's but the weakest. 



48 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Mary did not give up until the very last hour. 
She knelt by his bed all night before they took her 
child and prayed for a vision of relief, for a way to be 
shown that she might not have to yield to the demand 
to let him go. But in the end she helped to dress him 
and pack his little things, weeping over each garment 
she folded away. She took his arms from around 
her neck and smiled through her tears when she gave 
him into the arms of Mahala Sanborn. 

Four bereavements within a few short years sep- 
arated Mary Baker from brother, mother, husband, 
and son. What wonder that at this period she sunk 
into invalidism and that in later years when revert- 
ing to this time she wrote: 

It is well to know that our material, mortal his- 
tory is but the record of dreams. . . . The heavenly 
intent of earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, 
to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly 
from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to 
spiritual joy and true estimate of Being.^ 

^ "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 33. 



CHAPTER V 

FORMATIVE PROCESSES 

AS when in a patriotic symphony one hears a pro- 
longed orchestration of a nation's woe, its 
anguish crying in the strings, its resentments explo- 
sive in the brasses, its struggles hinted in the vague 
ruffle of drums, there begins to be apprehended a 
note of hope, which swells and grows until the horn 
takes it up with confidence and sings and soars 
above the harmonic conflict a psean of faith ; so in 
preparing to sing its theme a great life is submerged 
in its community, through periods of prolonged and 
poignant delay, when affairs obtrude, other voices 
and other wills are clamorous, and its clear call of 
faith is drowned for the time, heard only as elfin 
notes on the inner ear of him who is to play the 
great strain. 

For three years Mary lived with her sister Abigail, 
though she spent some time at her father's home, 
where she accepted the new regime unflinchingly 
and even lovingly, recognizing freely the good qual- 
ities and capacities of her stepmother. She occu- 
pied herself with writing when strong enough, and 
hkewise when strong enough assisted her sister in 
her social life and entertaining which brought 
influential personages to their board. Mr. Tilton 

4 



50 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

was now a railroad director and foresaw a future 
for the little city. 

The status of the Tilton and Baker families in 
the community of Central New Hampshire has been 
indicated. The town in which they lived was not 
far from Hillsborough, Franklin Pierce's home, or 
Boscawen, the early home of Webster. The Bakers 
and the Tiltons were Democrats, their political pre- 
dilection was in the marrow of their bones. It has 
been indicated that influential personages gathered 
at their homes, and their friendships with leading 
politicians were strong. It follows that discussion 
of public affairs as well as of religion and business 
ventures found place in their daily intercourse, in- 
fluencing members of the families in their relations 
toward each other. 

This is the period of 1850 to 1853, when public 
events were rapidly changing the colonial spirit of 
all Americans. The passage of the Compromise of 
1850, devised by Clay, which included the Fugitive 
Slave Act, was the beginning of a bitter strife in 
politics. The debates which now waged in Congress 
were perhaps the most strenuous mental and moral 
wrestlings that the republic of the United States has 
known. This wrestling of mind and soul was to end 
only in the mighty physical conflict which Americans 
call the Civil War. In 1850 Webster was working 
with herculean efforts to preserve the Union against 
the attacks of the extreme pro-slavery men on the 
one hand and of the abolitionists on the other. 

The Southern states hotly resented the agitation 
of the question of the morality and wisdom of 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 51 

slavery, while the North seemed to experience a 
shuddering horror over the Fugitive Slave Law, 
evading its rulings wherever possible with the pas- 
sage of personal liberty laws. These laws were 
intended to protect free negroes falsely alleged to be 
fugitive slaves and threatened with reenslavement. 
Such a fate menaced many negroes who had been 
set free. This was true of the negroes Mary Baker 
Glover had freed. In the first place with freedom 
granted, the negro had had to leave the South to 
preserve it; now even in the North he might lose 
it if an unscrupulous trader claimed him. 

In June, 1852, Franklin Pierce of New Hamp- 
shire was nominated for President at Baltimore by 
the Democratic National Convention which en- 
dorsed the Compromise of 1850 and the Fugitive 
Slave Law, and denounced slavery agitation. The 
Free Soil Democrats, a month later, nominated 
John P. Hale of New Hampshire for President. 
Daniel Webster, also of New Hampshire, would 
doubtless have been the Whig candidate but for his 
age and his uncompromising attitude in support of 
the Fugitive Slave Law. His death occurred in 
October of that year. New Hampshire was prob- 
ably never more mentally excited and morally 
wrought in its history. 

At this time Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his life 
of Pierce, a delightful biographic sketch. Pierce 
had married Jane Applet on, the daughter of the 
president' of Bowdoin College, Hawthorne's alma 
mater. Had Albert Baker been alive he, too, must 
have supported Pierce with pen and oratory. 



52 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Families were greatly influenced in their political 
thought by their old-time friendships. Pierce was 
not only personally a man of rare fascination and 
magical charm, but he possessed the strength con- 
ferred by family tradition throughout New England. 

Mary Baker was an unusually intellectual woman ; 
where did she stand in this hour ? Conceive her po- 
sition. She who might have effectively wielded her 
pen in this cause must allow it to lie idle. She must 
behold another woman do that which, with her 
family behind her, as the Beechers were behind 
Harriet Beecher Stowe, she, too, might have done. 
She was like a soldier paroled on honor whose sword 
is restless in its scabbard. Moreover, she was de- 
prived of independence by these circumstances, for, 
throttled on the subject for which she felt the great- 
est interest, she could not write on sugary nothings 
as many another genius, struggling against its en- 
vironment, has discovered. Furthermore, she was 
ill a great portion of the time, and as it has been 
shown that bereavement contributed to that physi- 
cal condition, it must also be shown that mental 
isolation, caused by her independent political views, 
added to it. Her father, who had contended so 
bitterly with her on religion, would in this hour have 
contended with equal strenuosity over politics had 
she asserted her opinions. Her sister Abigail was 
likewise set against her in political views. 

It is still remembered in that community how the 
Tiltons held an informal social gathering and every- 
body of consequence in the town attended. It ap- 
pears to have been a semi-political reception, and 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 53 

on this occasion the Baker sisters disagreed before 
their guests. Mrs. Glover had come into the parlors 
to assist her sister. She was a notable figure, be- 
cause of her grace and beauty, though wasted in 
health, and her large eyes burned as she listened 
to the expressions of political opinion around her, 
called forth by the presidential campaign. 

"And what does Mrs. Glover have to say to all 
this ? " said a gentleman who had observed her re- 
pressed emotion while listening and taking no part 
in the conversation. All eyes turned toward her. 
Those who had not dared to venture an adverse 
opinion in the great house of the town hushed the 
lighter-minded around them. It was a moment of 
suspense such as only occasionally thrills a social 
gathering. 

"I say," said Mrs. Glover, ''that the South as 
well as the North suffers from the continuance of 
slavery and its spread to other states; that the 
election of Franklin Pierce will but involve us in 
larger disputes; that emancipation is written on 
the wall." 

The gathering had received its thrill which went 
down the backs of the several guests like baptismal 
currents of lightning. 

*'Mary," cried her sister, "do you dare to say 
that in my house.?" 

"I dare to speak what I believe in any house," 
responded Mrs. Glover quietly. 

The report of that speech went abroad. Mrs. 
Glover was remembered for it long by political 
thinkers of New Hampshire. They said Mrs. Eddy 



54 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

was an extremely intellectual woman at thirty, and 
that she had remarkable insight in affairs. They 
also said that her pride was as unbending as her 
father's. Now Abigail, too, had made a speech, 
not easily forgotten or overlooked by a Baker. 

Keeping in mind these political agitations which 
stirred the country, and further grasping the hour 
by remembering that it was now railroads were 
being built across the continent, shipping was being 
improved by the introduction of steam, gold had 
just been discovered in California, improved ma- 
chinery was being placed on the farms and in the 
mills, it will be seen why, with rapid changes in con- 
ditions of living, it was not strange, as a recent 
writer ^ has said, that there should be a correspond- 
ing change in the minds of men and that their ideas 
should become unsettled and that transcendentalism 
in religion, literature, and politics should begin to 
flourish. Methods of education improved, news- 
papers were published in every town, the lyceum 
system of lectures became popular. Literature in 
America developed a new school of which the lights 
were Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, Haw- 
thorne, Holmes, — all New England men. 

In such an era Spiritualism had its birth, and 
mesmerism and animal magnetism were being 
widely discussed. But if a Poyen lectured through 
New England on these subjects, he had an Emerson 
on his heels with saner topics. Yet it must be taken 
into account that in the early fifties the conversa- 
tion at social gatherings was everywhere in America 
charged with the subject of SpirituaHsm. In 1849 

^ Encyclopaedia Britannica : United States. 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 55 

the Fox sisters of Rochester had startled the world 
with the story of their **rappings." That the *' un- 
discovered country" should be rapping to our world 
attention seemed almost more wonderful than if 
Mars should be found to-day to be signaling our 
planet. 

London was no less excited over this topic than 
New York or Boston. Mediums developed on all 
sides. They saw ''the vanished hand" and heard 
"the voice that is still." In London they handled 
red-hot coals and unfastened cords and bonds, they 
caused musical instruments to be played by unseen 
touch and the ringing of bells to sound upon the 
air. Poyen and Andrew Jackson Davis published 
books on mesmerism or animal magnetism. The 
cure of disease by clairvoyant diagnosis and mes- 
meric healing was quite commonly given credence. 
Were such ideas reconcilable with religion ? They 
speculated on it under the very altar, though New 
England was not peculiar in this respect. How- 
ever, it is a just assertion that not to have heard 
such discussions or not to have been interested in 
them, was not to have lived at all in the conscious- 
ness of the time. 

Mary Baker did live in that consciousness, fully 
and deeply. Just as she lived in the consciousness 
of poHtical struggle, just as she drank in the new 
literary atmosphere of that glorious school of New 
England writers, she was aware of that oscillation 
in religious notions. Every circumstance of her 
education and breeding had given her the habit of 
dealing with life in a large way. She who dared to 



56 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

set aside her father's and sister's poUtical opinions 
to maintain her own convictions, most certainly had 
ideas concerning SpirituaUsm. But to connect her 
hfe seriously at any period with Spiritualism is to 
make use of unwarrantable conjecture. Was this 
the woman to go into trances for the benefit of the 
superstitious country folk? Would such as these 
have had access to the great house, to the secluded 
chamber, to the invalid absorbed in her books ? 
Even Dr. Ladd, the family physician, who was in- 
terested in mesmeric experiments, was restrained 
from practising on Mary Baker by the dignity of 
her position. 

The time came when Mary Baker had thought 
her way through this maze of intellectual vaporing 
and then there came from her pen a refutation of 
these wonder- workings. The common people were 
those she then sought on the basis of an independent 
life of voluntary poverty. She sought working men 
and women, not to play upon their superstition, 
but to clear their vision. She associated with Spir- 
itualists for years, more or less ; she must associate 
with them as she must with Universalists and Uni- 
tarians. She did not avoid them or their discussions, 
as will be shown in later chapters. At times she was 
even present at seances. Her dealing with the en- 
tire subject was consistent, and her deep sounding 
of its contentions was as much a part of her develop- 
ment as the consideration of Calvinism in her earlier 
years. 

While living with her sister Abigail, Mary was 
often confined to her bed for long periods. She was 




HOME OF ABIGAIL TILTON, TILTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE 

Where Mrs. Eddy lived with her sister before her second marriage 
Removed from its original environment 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 57 

afflicted with a spinal weakness which caused spas- 
modic seizures, followed by prostration which 
amounted to a complete nervous collapse. In her 
moments of utter weakness her father would take her 
in his arms and soothe her as though she were again 
his bairn. All differences of faith and opinion were 
forgotten in the purely human love which was very 
strong in this family. Abigail sought in divers ways 
to make her sister more comfortable. She had a 
divan fitted with rockers to give Mary a change 
from long hours in bed, and when the invalid would 
be able to go about again they would carry her down 
to the carriage and the two sisters would drive slowly 
through the village streets and country highways. 

In 1853, after nine years of widowhood, a com- 
plete change was brought about in her life and in all 
the circumstances of it, through a second marriage. 
Mrs. Eddy has said this marriage was unfortunate 
and has left it without further word of protest. 
It was unfortunate, yet jeweled adversity. It oc- 
cupied twelve years in the heart of her life, and 
subjected her to a measure of isolation and social 
obscurity. But it carried her away from worldly 
stimulation to a prolonged retreat in the mountains 
where significant experiences dealt with her heart. 
From 1850 until 1875 was largely a period of medi- 
tation for her. She passed a great part of this time 
in small towns far from the madding strife of cities. 
She experienced much suffering physically and went 
through mental agony few natures are called upon 
to endure. She did not succumb to the assaults of 
pain or grief, but emerged with a work which seems 



58 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

destined to greatly change the world's religious 
thought. 

Dr. Daniel Patterson, a dentist, a relative of Mark 
Baker's second wife, came to their home on a visit. 
He was a big, handsome, healthy man with great 
animal spirits and excessive confidence in himself. 
He had some knowledge of homeopathy and used 
the prescribed remedies for his dental patients in 
his journeys through the country. Mrs. Glover's 
invalidism interested him. He expounded it to the 
family. She was too delicate, he declared, for harsh 
remedies and would be particularly susceptible to 
high medical attenuations, the catch phrase of the 
new medical school of the hour. A crisis occurring 
in her illness, he experimented and brought her 
through successfully. On a day in due season. 
Dr. Patterson confided to Mrs. Tilton that he loved 
her sister, that he believed her to be suffering as 
much from the separation from her child as from 
organic functional disorder. He wanted to marry 
her, reunite her with her child, give her her own 
home, and make her a well woman through the care 
he would bestow. 

It is not likely that Mrs. Tilton reflected suflS- 
ciently to detect an ambitious project, or that she 
saw more than an honest love offering devoted care. 
She consulted her father who discussed the matter 
with the dentist. Mark Baker must have been 
doubtful of this fluent-speaking, full-bearded, broad- 
shouldered optimist in broadcloth. Dr. Patterson 
was always something of a dandy, and even in 
the mountains wore broadcloth and fine linen, kid 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 59 

gloves and boots, topping all with a silk hat. His 
raiment was a considerable part of his personality. 
Mr. Baker must have taken a more accurate measure 
of this man than did Mrs. Tilton, but he knew it was 
true that Mary never ceased to grieve for her child, 
— her child that was not welcome either in the home 
of his second wife or in the Tilton home. A mar- 
riage that would restore that child to Mary might 
rouse her to health and happiness. Moreover, the 
dentist was a kinsman of his wife. 

The marriage was accordingly arranged, and took 
place at the Baker home. Mrs. Glover, who was 
at first startled at the proposal and much averse to 
the marriage, has explained why she consented to it 
and how disastrously it terminated for her in two 
succinct sentences. She says : ''My dominant thought 
in marrying again was to get back my child; but 
after our marriage his stepfather was not willing he 
should have a home with me." ^ 

Dr. Patterson first took his wife to Franklin, a 
nearby factory town, where they lived for three 
years. He employed a housekeeper but put his 
wife off with regard to her child. She must wait 
until her health improved. He was much abroad 
traveling from village to village. He called fre- 
quently upon his influential relatives in Tilton, and 
sometimes leaned a bit heavily upon their good- 
will. Not very prosperous, he was always confi- 
dent that just around the corner was the best success 
in the world. Left much to herself, Mrs. Patterson, 
as we must now call Mary Baker, read deeply in 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 32. 



60 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

her books. She had brought to Frankhn furnishings 
to make her small home comfortable, a few pieces of 
mahogany willed to her by her mother, long mirrors 
in gilt frames, her own excellent collection of books. 
A few family friends came from time to time and 
certain of the townspeople called. Among them, 
Mr. Warren Daniels, a wealthy and retired mill 
owner living in Franklin, said that Mrs. Patterson's 
reputation for intellect and beauty had preceded 
her, but that in Franklin she led a retired life, was 
the most reserved of women, and one whom all 
men must respect and honor. 

In 1856 Mrs. Patterson persuaded her husband 
to remove to Groton, a village to the North of the 
Winnepesaukee region, near the entrance of the 
Franconia range of the White Mountains. In this 
village her son was living with the Cheneys. Per- 
haps Dr. Patterson was more easily persuaded to 
make the change since the Tiltons held a mortgage 
on a little property in that town which he hoped to 
buy on easy terms. Groton is a farming center, 
Uttle changed by passing years. It boasts a general 
store and post-office, a blacksmith shop, district 
school and Union church. Situated some miles 
back from the railroad, its elevation is about one 
thousand feet above sea-level. The journey thither 
is by conveyance, up through the foot-hills along a 
valley pass, following a turbulent trout stream which 
leaps and falls over the rocks, singing a wild little 
song of its own. Two mountains loom blue and 
magnificent away to the North. On the lesser hills 
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FORMATIVE PROCESSES 61 

The new home was a little unpainted cottage off 
the main road. It was beside the stream in which 
was a mill-dam. John Kidder, a machinist and 
cabinet-maker, was their neighbor, and had an 
interest in the sawmill attached to the Patterson 
property. Other neighbors there were not far away. 
It was not a lonely or desolate spot. The town had 
a small library; to the church came different de- 
nominational preachers ; the school had eighty-four 
pupils and was taught by a man who later held a 
position in the faculty of a Massachusetts college. 
Many physicians, lawyers, and clergymen now 
scattered over the United States came from this 
mountain village. Clergymen especially seemed 
to develop here, twenty having gone out into the 
world from this mountain nest in the past fifty 
years. 

The Patterson home in exterior was not unlike its 
neighbors, but within it was different. Mrs. Patter- 
son carried with her an atmosphere which was re- 
flected in her surroundings . She was bedridden most 
of the time they lived here, yet her active mind secured 
perfect order, exquisite cleanliness, a shining radi- 
ance of books, prints, polished mahogany, and a 
cherished few gleaming bits of silver service and 
brass candlesticks. At first she had a housekeeper, 
but one day she took in a blind girl who came to her 
door seeking employment. The housekeeper pro- 
tested and Mrs. Patterson allowed the housekeeper 
to go and retained the blind girl, who was with her 
for several years and in old age paid a beautiful 
tribute to Mrs. Eddy's kindness. She spoke of her 



62 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

as low-voiced and gentle, but insistent on perfect 
housekeeping. 

She not only befriended the blind girl, but was 
kind to her sister, who said, "I thought it the most 
beautiful home in the world. I was a child of ten 
and used to visit my sister Myra. I remember well 
how Mrs. Patterson would call me to her room, lay 
down her book, and place her thin white hand on 
my head or stroke my cheek. She wished to com- 
fort me, for I had lately lost a good father." 

Of Mrs. Eddy's extreme invalidism at this time 
there is no doubt. "I had the honor to take care of 
Mrs. Eddy once," said a very old woman of Groton. 
''She was all alone in her home and I heard her bell 
ringing. I went in and found her lying rigid with 
foam on her lips. I brought her around with cold 
water. She motioned to her medicine chest, and I 
gave her what she wanted. Then I sat with her till 
she got better." 

She was indeed far from well, but Mrs. Patterson 
had come to Groton to be with her boy. Her desire 
for him amounted to a passionate hunger of mater- 
nity, and he, when he had seen his mother again, 
was as eager to be with her. But now a peculiar 
jealousy interfered between mother and son. He 
would come to his mother in spite of the injunctions 
of his foster parents and his stepfather, and once 
broke through the window to get into her room. 
Dr. Patterson would find him there with his books, 
leaning upon his mother's couch, while she ex- 
amined his progress in studies, a poor progress 
indeed as she found. The blind servant stated that 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 63 

these visits aroused Dr. Patterson to declare a per- 
emptory prohibition of the lad from the house, which 
was not entirely successful. He reported to the 
Tiltons that the boy could not be kept away and 
that he exhausted his mother. That report brought 
Abigail Tilton to Groton on a visit, and the Cheneys 
shortly after fulfilled an ambition long cherished by 
going West. In her autobiography Mrs. Eddy writes 
of her son: 

A plot w^as consummated for keeping us apart. 
The family to whose care he was committed very 
soon removed to what was then regarded as the far 
West. After his removal a letter was read to my 
little son informing him that his mother was dead 
and buried. Without my knowledge he was ap- 
pointed a guardian, and I was then informed that 
my son was lost. Every means wdthin my power 
was employed to find him but without success. We 
never met again until he had reached the age of 
thirty-four.^ 

Young Glover ran away from the Cheneys after 
they had been in Minnesota a short time, and as a 
young lad enlisted in the Union army for the Civil 
War. He made a good record as a soldier, was 
wounded at Shiloh, and after the war became a 
United States marshal, and led the life of a pros- 
pector in the Western states. Mrs. Eddy had a 
temporary knowledge of him. He wrote her from 
the front during the war, and that her love for him 
was not uprooted by continual separation was shown 
in her excitement and joy at hearing frona him. She 

^ " Retrospection and Introspection," p. 32. 



64 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

called in her friends to read his letter, and wept over 
it and kissed its pages. But her son passed again 
into obscurity, bent on the pursuit of a freedom 
which he first learned to love at the Sanborn smithy, 
and which life in the wild West of those days seemed 
to foster as second-nature. Thus he grew up be- 
yond the sphere of his mother's influence and his 
life became fixed in a path diverse to hers. Destiny 
inscrutable seemed fixed in its decree that she should 
live childless and alone. 

When they took her boy from her arms the second 
time, Mrs. Patterson seemed about to sink into utter 
despair. A very old man, of more than ninety years, 
devout and saint-like, used to visit her. He came 
nearly every day to read the Bible and pray. One 
day when old Father Merrill came to her home, he 
saw Mrs. Patterson dressed and walking to meet 
him with a smile and outstretched hands of wel- 
come. He leaped with delight, clapping his hands 
and crying out, *' Praise God, he's answered our 
prayer." Earnestly they discussed it together. Was 
her improved condition an answer to prayer ? Mrs. 
Patterson believed that a blameless life should be 
healthy, but the old man thought God sometimes 
sent sickness for spiritual good. She did not cross 
this old man with argument, but she had begun to 
work on the idea that would haunt her for years until 
perfected, the nature of Divine healing. 

Their neighbors, the Kidders, were also friendly 
visitors. Mrs. Kidder was a Spiritualist and spent 
hours urging its claims on Mrs. Patterson. A child 
born to the Kidders at this time Mrs. Patterson 



FORMATIVE PROCESSES 65 

named after her father. She also took the Kidders' 
son, Daniel, a lad of fifteen, for a private pupil. He 
was an ambitious lad and later had a successful 
career in mechanics and railroad construction. He 
remembered with gratitude the help Mrs. Patterson 
gave him with his studies, especially in rudimentary 
mathematics and physics. 

Dr. Patterson had kept up his itineracy while at 
Groton. He has a record for a certain sort of gal- 
lantry through the country and was once pursued 
to his home by an irate blacksmith whose wife was 
too attractive to the doctor. The less of this re- 
counted is the better, save only that his unfitness as 
a husband be shown. His fortunes did not thrive. 
Although he mortgaged Mrs. Patterson's furniture 
and articles of jewelry, he could not meet his pay- 
ments on the little property. A certain farmer went 
to Tilton and took up the mortgage on the house, 
and then demanded possession of the mill. Dr. 
Patterson defied him with high words, and the vil- 
lagers said they had a personal encounter. When 
Dr. Patterson saw the legal paper he prepared 
to remove, not only from the mill but from 
Groton. 

Mrs. Tilton came over to remove her sister in a 
carriage. Together they drove down the mountain 
road. The village church bell was tolling, and 
Dr. Patterson's enemy having got into the church, 
found this means of expressing his derision. The 
blind girl walked behind all the way to Rumney, a 
distance of six miles. She would not ride in the 
carriage where she could hear the sobs of her 



66 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

mistress. Abigail held her sister in her arms and 
strove to comfort her. And well she might. She 
who managed with such executive skill in many 
affairs had managed but indifferently in arranging 
this marriage. 



CHAPTER VI 

ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 

IN threading the labyrinth of a mind to find its 
starting point upon a new phase of existence, it is 
frequently most difficult to lay hold of the silken 
clue which guided it to the gateway out of a maze 
of turnings. Every life has its moments of revelation 
when it would seem proper to start away upon the 
higher adventures of the soul; but seldom does a 
human being go forward without hesitation, leaving 
the past with its thousand detaining hands by an 
irrevocable decision. Having received the vision, 
beheld the clear trail of a path up the mountain, the 
pilgrim soul, with mystifying impulses which it can- 
not itself understand, obeying instincts which lie too 
deep for scrutiny, will almost invariably turn back- 
ward on the road of experience to reembrace its worn- 
out illusions and weep at its old tombs. Finding 
the old life and its associations as disappoint- 
ing and unprofitable as ever, it will agonize once 
more over its mistakes, and putting them off again 
one by one, will back away toward its future, with 
face set miserably upon the past. Not until the past 
smites him, will the pilgrim, with a sudden realiza- 
tion of himself, turn right about and rush for his 
mountain. Now he must search again for the path. 
His search may be weary and performed in humility, 



68 THE LIFE OF IMARY BAKER EDDY 

but the path once found will never again be forsaken 
for that pathless wilderness where each human 
being experiences doubts and despairs. 

When Dr. Patterson removed from Groton he 
engaged board for himself and his wife at the home 
of Mr. and Mrs. John Herbert at Rumney Station. 
The house was a substantial frame dwelling of the 
Colonial type with comfortable chambers looking 
out upon broad lawns. The family life at first 
appeared to be as broadly harmonious as the fashion 
of its dwelling. Mrs. Patterson's invalidism, how- 
ever, soon aroused comment among the frequenters 
of the home. As the frail, delicate woman had been 
criticized by the thoughtless mountaineers of Groton 
who in their rugged health believed the handsome 
doctor to be a martyr to the whims of an exacting 
invalid, so in Rumney she was criticized by the gossip- 
ing ladies of the boarding-house. If Dr. Patterson, 
obedient to his better instincts of courtesy, picked 
up his wife's handkerchief, or readjusted her shawl, 
they were jealously observant, or if in hearty buoy- 
ancy he displayed the tenderness of strength toward 
weakness and lifted Mrs. Patterson in his arms to 
carry her up-stairs, they sat silently disapproving. 
For such misinterpretation of her invalidism and 
lack of appreciation of her character she was mis- 
understood in that neighborhood for half a cen- 
tury. Often a nervous sufferer, she soon felt the 
wisdom of retiring from this atmosphere and per- 
suaded the doctor, who contemplated locating in 
Rumney, to procure a cottage in Rumney village 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 69 

about a mile back in the hills. This cottage occupied 
an eminence near the edge of the town and com- 
manded an agreeable view. It was a pretty home, 
as her Groton home had been, and her blind servant 
was still with her and gave her devoted care. 

The blind girl, Myra Smith, has described in 
detail Mrs. Patterson's persevering efforts to recover 
her health both at Groton and in Rumney, and her 
account is interesting because of the light it throws 
on that period of Mrs. Eddy's life, and especially 
because of the edification it may be to other invalids. 
She has related that Mrs. Patterson faithfully ob- 
served the laws of hygiene. Every morning, even 
in the depth of winter when the weather was severely 
cold in that mountainous climate, Mrs. Patterson 
was lifted from her bed into a chair, wrapped in 
blankets. Her chair was then drawn out into the 
veranda, where she remained as long as she could 
sit up, drinking in deep breaths of pure air and 
feasting her eyes upon the beauty of the hills. 

Her room meanwhile was thrown wide open to 
admit a free current of air and streams of sunshine. 
Her bed was redressed for the day and when the 
apartment was restored to a proper temperature the 
invalid returned to it. She was then bathed, rubbed 
in alcohol, reclothed, and again lifted into her bed. 
She had a mattress that could be elevated at the 
head and many of her hours were passed in the 
half-reclining attitude in which it was possible for 
her to read, write, or even receive callers when not 
suffering too great pain. She ate sparingly and 
according to a strict diet, imposing upon herself a 



70 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

severe regimen of which water, coarse bread, and 
natural fruits were the principal articles of nourish- 
ment. 

Beside attention to hygienic regulation of bathing, 
eating, and going into the fresh air, Mrs. Patterson 
received homeopathic treatment from Dr. Patterson, 
and she herself read books on homeopathy. But 
for all this, the spinal weakness was not overcome 
and the nervous seizures continued to occur with 
increasing violence. Mrs. Patterson was wasting to 
a shadow under the most careful nursing, and her 
life was being consumed in ineffectual efforts to 
appease the ravishment of pain. 

While she was still in this condition of ill health, 
Dr. Patterson left her alone with her servant and 
took a journey to Washington. His journey was 
made primarily to carry out a commission for 
Governor Berry of New Hampshire, who had a fund 
to be distributed to loyal Southerners. This com- 
mission enabled him to push a project of his own, 
for he had been excited by the news of the fall of 
Sumter, when South Carolina, having seceded, had 
fired the first shot in the American Civil War, and 
it was Dr. Patterson's hope to secure an appointment 
on the medical staff of the army. But going out to 
view the battle of Bull Run, he strayed too far into 
the Confederate camp and was captured and made 
a prisoner, presumably as a spy. He was taken to 
Libbey, the famous Southern war prison, where his 
experiences were hard and bitter as were those of all 
who endured like captivity. 

Mrs. Patterson read his name in the list of prison- 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 71 

ers furnished in press dispatches. She could do 
nothing to aid him though her sympathy for him 
was keen as expressed in letters written at this time 
in the effort to stir her relatives to activity in his 
behalf, for in spite of his many shortcomings, in all 
personal relations he had invariably been kind to her 
and she had for Dr. Patterson a true wife's devotion. 
It was at about this time that she heard from her 
son for the first time since he had been taken from 
her in Groton. He had enlisted and gone to the 
front. How intolerable it seemed to her to lie sick 
and inert in that lonely cottage, with husband and son 
caught in the maelstrom of her country's agony, — 
how desolate and dreary her days may be imagined. 
Bedridden in the remote mountain village, with 
little or no company but that of h^r maid, she was 
once more thrown back upon herself, and forced by 
desolation and pain to seek God for comfort and 
grace to endure her lot while the world was unfold- 
ing famous pages of history. 

The world, in the persons of the great folk of the 
vicinity, came to her occasionally. Her maid re- 
counted the grand airs, the rustling garments and 
the consequential stir created by the calls of certain 
great dames who kept up the punctilious formality, 
if not neighborly charity, of remembering what was 
due Mrs. Patterson, born Baker, also sister of the 
wealthy Mrs. Tilton. But these intrusions of the 
world were few and far between. 

Meantime Mrs. Patterson read her Bible day by 
day. At this time she more earnestly than ever 
pondered the cures of the early church. She has 



72 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

written in ** Science and Health"^ how in child- 
hood she often hstened with joy to these words 
falhng from the Hps of her sainted mother, *'God is 
able to raise you up from sickness." She also 
declares how she dwelt upon the meaning of this 
passage of Scripture which her mother so often 
quoted, *'And these signs shall follow them that 
believe ; they shall lay hands upon the sick and they 
shall recover." Some of her early experiences now 
came back to her. She recalled how through her 
mother's advice to rest in God's love she had been 
able to recover from the fever brought on by re- 
ligious argument with her father and pastor. She 
also recalled how she had subdued the insane man 
in Tilton when she was a schoolgirl and brought 
him into a state of calmness and tranquillity when 
every one else had fled from him in terror. She re- 
membered her exalted religious state at the period of 
both these cures and endeavored to determine 
whether such cures depended upon extreme intensity 
of faith or whether a calm sense of assurance might 
not as surely reach God's attention. While studying 
and meditating on these apparent miracles of faith 
in her own experience and striving to connect them 
with the manner and method of the New Testament 
cures, a singular event befell which gives verity to 
Mrs. Eddy's assertion that for years before the 
discovery of Christian Science she had been search- 
ing for spiritual causation for disease and a spiritual 
method of cure. 

Aside from the calls of her aristocratic neighbors, 
she was not entirely forgotten by the village. The 

^ "Science and Health," p. 359. 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 73 

children, picking berries along the road, would often 
stop to talk to **the good sick lady" and often 
repeated at home or in the houses where they sold 
their berries what she said to them, how her blue eyes 
shone upon them, and how her thin hands touched 
their little brown ones with thrilling sympathy. 

So by the love of the children a gentle rumor of 
saintliness was spread through that region and if 
Mary Baker thought upon the saintliness of her 
mother, some dwellers of the countryside came to 
think of Mrs. Patterson as a saint and to go to her 
for advice and comfort. Among those who sought 
her aid was a mother carrying her infant, a child 
whose eyes were badly diseased. The mother was 
a simple working woman, so simple that she could 
still believe there was a relation between piety and 
power. She wept as she laid her babe on Mrs. 
Patterson's knees and implored her to ask God to 
cure its blindness. 

Mrs. Patterson was touched by the woman's 
faith and the child's apparent need. She took the 
babe in her arms and looked into its eyes. She saw 
they were in such a state of inflammation that neither 
the pupil nor the iris was discernible. She reflected 
that Jesus had said, ''Suffer the little children 
to come unto me and forbid them not." ''Who," 
she asked herself, "has forbidden this little one, 
who is leading it into the way of blindness .^" Mrs. 
Eddy has stated that she lifted her thought to God 
and returned the child to its mother, assuring her 
that God is able to keep his children. The mother 
looked at the child's eyes and they were healed. 



74 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

This apparently miraculous happening struck awe 
to Mary Baker as well as to the mother. 

Here was a clear manifestation of God's eternal 
laws of health made to the mind and consciousness 
of Mary Baker. She had invoked God's mercy and 
power and the response had come almost instantly. 
She believed and yet was bewildered. Here was 
vision, apocalypse. God had healed the child and 
despite that fact she was still enchained with pain. 
She had understood for the child, but could not, as 
yet, understand for herself. She had momentarily 
struck the harmonious chord, and a spontaneous 
healing had resulted. She saw there was a path out 
of her wilderness, but its beginning for her own feet 
was not clear. The detaining hands of the past and 
experiences she was about to go through were to 
impede her progress toward the clear understanding 
of truth. 

During the previous autumn Dr. Patterson had 
been much interested in circulars describing the 
healing powers of one Phineas P. Quimby of 
Portland, Maine. This Quimby had a peculiar 
reputation. To some minds he was a charlatan, 
nothing more, a man who had learned some tricks 
of mesmerism by which he amazed the hearts of 
the ignorant. To other minds he was a humane, 
self-sacrificing man of rare endowments who through 
abstruse study had become acquainted with secret 
laws of nature by which he was able to restore the 
sick to health. From time to time the newspapers 
printed accounts of him, now ridiculing him and 
now extolling him. 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 75 

Dr. Patterson had been inclined to take a favorable 
view of him and defend him against derision. Being 
himself unable to cure his wife as he had confidently 
expected to do, he felt much interest in the accounts 
of Quimby's cures. It did not matter if Quimby 
were a mesmerist, or a Spiritualist, or if he trans- 
mitted magnetic currents. The thing was he cured. 
People went to him and got well. It was very much 
in this matter with Dr. Patterson as in all the 
affairs of life, a case of **lo here, lo there !" 

So the doctor had written Quimby in the fall of 
1861, telling him that his wife had been for many 
years an invalid from a spinal disease, and that 
having heard of his wonderful cures, he desired to 
have him visit her ; or if Quimby intended to journey 
to Concord, he would carry his wife to him. Quimby 
replied that he had no intention of making a trip to 
Concord, that he had all the business he could 
attend to in Portland, but that he had no doubt 
whatever he could effect Mrs. Patterson's cure if 
she would come to him. 

Dr. Patterson, however, had, as has been related, 
projects of his own which more and more took 
possession of him as he read the news of Lincoln's 
inauguration and the call for troops to defend the 
Union. He was full of his proposed trip to Washing- 
ton, and the preliminary visit which must be made 
to Concord. These plans required all the funds and 
energy he had to bestow. 

Mrs. Patterson read the Quimby letter with its 
closing assurance many times. She asked herself 
often if it were not possible that this man withheld 



76 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

his real experiences from his pubUc circular because 
of their sacredness, if it were not likely that by piety 
and prayer, rather than by mesmerism, he had 
learned the power of healing. This was a perfectly 
consistent speculation, for from her childhood, from 
the days of her studying with her brother and later 
with her pastor, she had been taught to look for a 
law of cause and effect. Now here was a man 
healing, she reflected, and there must be a law to 
govern his cases. Moreover it was natural to her 
to take the religious view, that this law was only 
understood through revelation, and to credit Quimby 
with having received the revelation. She was a 
sincere Christian and believed healing without 
medicine must be done by God. 

Still it was the law she sought for. It was not 
enough for her that here and there a miracle of 
piety could be performed by those who gave their 
lives up to prayer. She had come to understand 
that, where the Hebrew prophets had occasionally 
and sporadically made God's will prevail in a so- 
called miracle, Jesus of Nazareth had never failed 
in invoking health and sustenance. He had cured 
the most desperate diseases with the same readi- 
ness as the mildest; He had blessed the poor food 
and abundance had been found to feed the multi- 
tude. Yet here she, Mary Baker, lay on a bed of 
pain and in sore need of means. Did God with- 
hold from her His bounty because she was a 
sinner ? Like Job, she knew in her heart this was 
not true. Then where was the fault and what was 
the law ? 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 77 

Mary Baker had performed certain cures from 
which she argued as from the sure ground of ex- 
perience, but these heaUngs were incidental and 
accidental and she scarcely knew how they had 
occurred except that she knew they had happened 
when her thoughts were associated with God. She 
pondered after this fashion: Laws of God are 
immutable and universal. Then because His laws 
are so fixed and so infinitely operative, man by 
studying them has built up the sciences, as mathe- 
matics and mechanics. But in physics he is still 
crying out for the philosopher's stone and in medi- 
cine for the elixir of life. ''I know there is cause 
and effect in the spiritual world as in the natural ! " 
she would exclaim to herself. ''I know there is a 
science of health, a science of life, a divine science, a 
science of God." 

But it did not enter Mary Baker's mind in that 
hour that by this assertion she had declared herself 
the discoverer of a great truth, that by this affirma- 
tion of faith she had pledged herself to find the way 
and prove what she had declared. She was to herself 
only a woman in extremity, hungering for truth. 
In Portland, Maine, was a man whom she now 
began to endow with her own faith. If she could 
get to him, she would question him and find out if 
he had come close to God's heart. If he had, how 
humbly she would beg him to teach her and guide 
her and how joyfully would she follow ! In May of 
1862 she wrote a letter to Dr. Quimby, a letter 
which doubtless surprised that gentleman. She 
stated her confidence in his possession of a. philoso- 



78 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

phy and that she wished to come to him to study and 
be healed. 

She now began to make preparation to visit 
Quimby. She requested her sister to come to her 
aid and her sister responded. She rose from her 
sick bed and started on the journey though she 
accompUshed it by a somewhat circuitous route. 
Mrs. Patterson dismissed with love her blind servant 
so long faithful. Her household goods were packed 
up and sent to Tilton and she returned with Abigail 
to her home. On the way to Tilton she explained to 
her sister her wish to visit Phineas P. Quimby ; but 
Abigail demurred. She said Quimby was a mesmer- 
ist and Spiritualist, a quack scientist who had 
traveled around New England with a youth giving 
exhibitions in hypnotism. 

*'Why, Mary," she said, *'how can you desire to 
visit such a charlatan, — you with your mind, your 
talents, your religion, you who have always resisted 
these doctrines of animal magnetism and the pro- 
fessions of Spiritualism.?" 

''I certainly do not want mesmerism or Spirit- 
ualism," said Mary, "but I somehow believe that I 
must see what this man has or has not. I am im- 
pelled with an unquenchable thirst for God that 
will not let me rest. Abigail, there is a science be- 
yond all sciences we have ever studied. It is Christ's 
Science. There is a fundamental doctrine, a God's 
truth that will restore me to health, and if me, then 
countless thousands. Has this man Quimby dis- 
covered the great truth or is he a blunderer, perhaps 
a charlatan as you say ? I must know." 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 79 

"Mary, dear," said her sister, ''you are excitable 
and intense. You have Hved so long alone in the 
hills reading and thinking you are morbid. You 
should not have been left to yourself so long." 

**Then you must go with me to Portland to make 
up for neglecting me. You will go, won't you, 
Abigail.^" 

"Indeed I will not," cried the energetic Mrs. Til- 
ton. "You shall go to Dr. Vail's water-cure at Hill, 
which is a respectable sanitarium. I will hire you a 
nurse and rent you a cottage there. We shall see 
what a physician and hospital care can do for you." 

"But have I not faithfully taken medicine and 
lived according to hygienic rule for years .P" asked 
Mary. Then turning suddenly to her sister, she 
asked, "Abigail, do you doubt thepower of God.?" 

"I do not, but I believe God helps those who 
help themselves." 

"So He does, sister, when they come into harmony 
with His law ; that I know," answered Mary quietly. 

Abigail Tilton's words had a way of driving home 
and sticking there, like arrows shot into a target. 
She was a woman of common sense and she proposed 
to exercise common sense now for her sister. She 
would hear nothing of Quimby. When Mrs. Tilton 
had employed a young woman, named Susan Rand, 
to go to Hill with Mrs. Patterson, had engaged a 
conveyance to carry her there comfortably, and had 
instructed the driver to be most careful with his 
charge, then she supplied her sister with funds 
suflBcient for her stay, felt that she had performed 
her duty, and washed her hands of the event. 



80 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Mrs. Patterson arrived at the sanitarium ex- 
hausted with the journey. The driver hfted her out 
of the carriage rudely and set her upon her feet upon 
the ground. Mrs. Patterson turned and sped up 
the steps Uke a deer, collapsing in the waiting room 
of the hospital. The utter misery of that collapse 
was like death settling down upon her. Thus far 
she had come in her belief that God was going to 
help her and to help her now. But here God 
seemed to be forsaking her. She could only reiterate 
to herself in gasping weakness, *'I know God can 
and will cure me, if only I could understand His 
way." But she was in the midst of the doctors again 
who believed in quite different agencies. She must 
now submit to the water-cure, the fad of the period. 

They carried her to one of the little cottages and 
instructed her attendant in the system of nursing 
prevailing at the water-cure. For several weeks the 
treatment was continued with little result. Mrs. 
Tilton's common sense was failing its purpose once 
more. Then Mary Baker asserted her family 
spirit. She had wanted to go to Portland to see 
Quimby, and she determined she would go without 
further discussion. She wrote him in August that 
she would try to come to him, though she could sit 
up but for a few minutes at a time, and she asked 
him if he thought she would be able to reach him 
without sinking from the effects of the journey. 
Quimby replied so encouragingly that she completed 
her arrangements. 

Mrs. Patterson arrived at the International 
Hotel, Portland, in October, 1862. Here in this 



ILLUMINATION AND BACKWARD TURNING 81 

hotel Dr. Quimby, doctor by courtesy only, had his 
offices. In his reception room his patients gathered 
and sat by the hour, talking and visiting, discussing 
the doctor's sayings and their own illnesses. And 
in this reception room on the morning in October, 
when Mrs. Patterson arrived, were a number of 
patients together with his son George, a young man 
scarcely turned twenty-one, who then acted as his 
father's secretary. 

Mrs. Patterson was assisted up the stairs to this 
room and her extreme feebleness was marked by all. 
Dr. Quimby came from his inner office to receive the 
new patient and she beheld for the first time the 
man she believed a great physician. He was of small 
physique, with white hair and beard, level brows, 
and shrewd, penetrating eyes. He was healthy, 
dominant, energetic. He had the eye of the born 
hypnotizer, the man who can persuade other wills to 
obey his own, especially the wills of the sick and 
mentally disordered. But his face was kindly and 
his expression sincere. 

Mary Baker was at that time a frail shadow of a 
woman, an abstracted student, given to much 
thinking and prayer. With great blue eyes, deep 
sunk, yet arched above with beautiful brows, she 
looked into the friendly face bent above her and she 
looked with the deep intense gaze of the seer. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 

IN order to understand what sort of meeting it was 
which took place between the emaciated sufferer 
and invaUd, Mary Baker, and the mesmeric healer, 
Phineas Quimby, at the International Hotel in 
Portland, Maine, in October, 1862, it is necessary to 
survey briefly the latter's life and work up to this 
period. 

Quimby was the son of a poor blacksmith and 
was apprenticed as a lad to a clock-maker. He had 
no schooling and grew up illiterate but industrious 
and honest. He made with his own hands hundreds 
of clocks and having his interest thus awakened in 
mechanics, tinkered with small inventions, and is 
said to have perfected a number of tools, especially 
a hand- saw. Part of the time he earned his living 
making daguerreotypes. 

Thus he lived until he was thirty-six years old, a 
nervous, shrewd little man with a piercing black 
eye and determined mouth. He was argumentative 
and somewhat combative, inquiring, inventive, and 
doggedly determined. These traits were partially 
due to lack of education ; to him an axiom was not a 
self-evident proposition; he refused to accept any- 
thing as a truth unless he could experiment with it 
and prove it for himself. He was not religious, but 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 83 

a man of good morals and of a kindly nature, always 
ready to help his neighbor. 

In 1838 Charles Poyen, the French hypnotist, 
visited Belfast, Maine, Quimby's home town, where 
he ffave a course of lectures on mesmerism with illus- 
trative experiments. At his first exhibition in the 
town hall his efforts were something of a failure, and 
he declared that some one in the audience perverted 
the hypnotic influence. He invited whomsoever it 
was to remain and meet him after the others had 
gone. The man who remained was ''Park" 
Quimby, as the townspeople called him. Poyen 
talked with him and assured him that he had extraor- 
dinary hypnotic powers which, if developed, would 
make him an adept in mesmerism. Quimby was 
gratified and absorbingly interested. He at once 
began to experiment on his friends and acquaint- 
ances, and whenever he found a willing subject tried 
to put him into a mesmeric sleep. As he was very 
often successful in these efforts, people began to talk 
about him and if any one in the town did an eccen- 
tric thing, or had a mishap, the gossips said with 
waggish appreciation, ''Park Quimby has mesmer- 
ized him." 

His townsmen came to believe Quimby could 
compel a man to come in from the street by fixing his 
eye on him; and nothing more greatly entertained 
the villagers than to assist at such an exhibition at 
the corner store. Quimby's method of hypnotizing 
at this time was to fix his eyes in a concentrated gaze 
upon his subject. If he wished thoroughly to mes- 
merize the subject, that is, to put him to sleep, he 



84 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

would make passes across the subject's forehead, 
continuing his strokes down the shoulders and the 
length of the arms, shaking his hands after every 
pass. His subjects professed to thrill and tingle as 
though electric currents had passed through them, 
and some of them would perform Quimby's hyp- 
notic commands, however absurd they might be. 
Quimby soon found an unusually good subject in a 
youth named Lucius Burkmar. As his experiments 
with this young man absorbed his interest and at- 
tracted considerable attention, he abandoned his 
workshop and devoted himself to mesmerism. 

In his clock-tinkering days in Belfast, Park 
Quimby had been regarded as eccentric, and his 
home town now thought him quite mad in his new 
role. A few persons took him seriously and sought 
to have him cure minor illnesses, but more often he 
was derided, and sometimes even condemned as an 
infidel. Not appreciated at home, he left Belfast, 
taking Burkmar with him, and together they gave 
exhibitions in other towns where he was not so well 
known to his audiences and could command greater 
respect for his hypnotic feats. These are said often 
to have been so startling as to frighten susceptible 
persons, arousing in them suspicion of witchcraft and 
magic. More than once on his travels he stirred up 
a mob from which he and Burkmar had to escape 
by taking to their heels. 

Wonder-working soon proving not entirely agree- 
able as a method of earning a living, Quimby re- 
turned to Belfast and settled down in his workshop 
again until another mesmerist visited the town in the 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 85 

person of John Bovee Dods. Dods was the author 
of a book which was pubhshed in 1850. It contained 
ideas he had taught for twenty years and was en- 
titled "The Philosophy of Electrical Psychology." 
He gave public lectures in Belfast, exchanged 
ideas with Quimby, and took into his employ 
Quimby's subject, the lad Burkmar. When Quimby 
again employed Burkmar he found that Dods had 
been using him to read clairvoyantly the minds of 
patients and influencing him to prescribe remedies 
which Dods manufactured. 

Quimby thought that overreaching, and when 
Burkmar diagnosed cases for him, he influenced him 
to prescribe simple herbs. These remedies appeared 
to effect cures as well as the higher-priced ones and 
Quimby began to believe that it was not the medi- 
cine that was doing the curing but the patient's 
confidence in the doctor or medium. This was a de- 
cided step in a progression of reasoning which, had 
he possessed the mental equipment, might have 
carried him into the realm of psychological discov- 
ery. He was working honestly and cautiously, how- 
ever, and so accomplished a modicum of success as a 
magnetic healer. He first abandoned medicines and 
second, dismissing the subject he had so long relied 
upon, began to sit directly with his patients, for he 
had discovered his own clairvoyant ability to read 
his patient's thoughts or induce him to tell ''all his 
sensations." His cures were in part accomplished 
by directing the patient's thoughts to another part of 
the body from that supposed to be affected. Thus a 



86 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

boil on the back of the neck became a toothache at 
his suggestion. He rubbed the heads of his pa- 
tients and otherwise manipulated their bodies, be- 
lieving in his personal magnetism as the important 
part of the curative agency. 

In relieving the sick of their pains he found that 
he took their conditions upon himself, and he often 
related how he had to go into his garden and hoe 
vigorously, or to his woodpile and saw wood most 
industriously, to get rid of rheumatic pains or agues, 
and to reestablish his own equiUbrium and recharge 
himself with electric currents ; for Quimby was never 
all his life rid of the theories of Dods relating to the 
transmission of human electricity. Quimby is said 
to have cured cases of chronic disease of long stand- 
ing and to have secured a worthier reputation than 
when working wonders with Lucius Burkmar. He 
now began to travel about New England again 
and issued circulars advertising himself far and 
wide as a healer with a new theory. Avidity for the 
mysterious in the rural mind carried these circulars 
to the remotest hamlets. A curious account of his 
statements as to himself and his methods appeared 
in the Bangor Jejfersonian in 1857. It was headed, 
"A New Doctrine of Health and Disease," and it 
said in part: 

A gentleman of Belfast, Dr. Phineas P. Quimby, 
who was' remarkably successful as an experimenter 
in mesmerism some sixteen years ago, and has con- 
tinued his investigations in psychology, has dis- 
covered and in his daily practise carries out, a new 
principle in the treatment of disease. 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 87 

His theory is that the mind gives immediate 
form to the animal spirit and that the animal spirit 
gives form to the body as soon as the less plastic 
elements of the body are able to assume that form. 
Therefore, his first course in the treatment of a 
patient is to sit down beside him and put himself 
en rapport with him, which he does without pro- 
ducing the mesmeric sleep. 

He says that in every disease the animal spirit, 
or spiritual form, is somewhat disconnected from 
the body, that it imparts to him all its grief and the 
cause of it, which may have been mental trouble 
or shock to the body, as over fatigue, excessive cold 
or heat, etc. This impresses the mind with anxiety 
and the mind reacting upon the body produces 
disease. With this spirit form Dr. Quimby con- 
verses and endeavors to win it away from its grief, 
and when he has succeeded in doing so, it disap- 
pears and reunites with the body. Thus is com- 
menced the first step toward recovery. This union 
frequently lasts but a short time when the spirit 
again appears, exhibiting some new phase of its 
trouble. With this he again persuades and con- 
tends until he overcomes it, when it disappears as 
before. Thus two shades of trouble have disap- 
peared from the mind and consequently from the 
animal spirit, and the body already has commenced 
its efforts to come into a state in accordance with 
them. 

In 1859 Quimby went to Portland, Maine, and 
remained there until the summer of 1865. During 
this period he had many patients and performed a 
number of cures. His hypnotic practise now seems 
to have changed its form to a large extent, notwith- 
standing he manipulated his patients always and 



88 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

this seems to have been the feature upon which he 
laid the greatest stress. But he now embeUished 
these magnetic treatments with conversation, en- 
deavoring to account for the origin of disease in 
opinions and notions, oscillating between weirdly 
speculative and practical points of view and no- 
where confining himself to stringent definition. 

It was expedient to survey Quimby's life up to 
this point and it is now necessary to arrive at a clear 
conception of what sort of thinker he was. Unless 
we are quite clear here, we shall stray into a quag- 
mire and find ourselves believing that all that follows 
in the life of Mary Baker Eddy was the result of her 
meeting with this man. This argument is advanced 
only by those who have a vague and confused idea of 
Quimby. Its claims are these: that Quimby cured 
Mary Baker of her invalidism, that he gave her the 
germ ideas of her philosophy, that he presented her 
with manuscripts which she afterwards claimed as 
her own, that he focussed her mind, that he was the 
impetus of all her subsequent momentum. Were 
these contentions just, none but a perfidious ingrate 
would deny them. But not to deny them, circum- 
stantially and in totality, is to leave open the gate 
to the quagmire that Christian Science is mesmerism 
religionized. For to interpret Mary Baker Eddy and 
Christian Science by Quimbyism is to lose sight for- 
ever of the unique and powerful significance of her 
life. 

Summarizing Quimby, therefore, it may be stated 
that though he was no scientist, he was trained by 
over twenty years' experience in practising mes- 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 89 

merism and without knowing it was really a remark- 
able hypnotist. It would have been very extraor- 
dinary if from his quarter of a century's experience 
in mesmerism, clairvoyance, and magnetism he had 
not reduced his observations to some sort of phi- 
losophy however crude and empirical. Though he 
liked to call it his wisdom, what he actually attained 
was a jumble of reasoning which even he did not 
understand. He combated with vigor and manli- 
ness sickly ideas in the minds of his patients, but his 
healthy physical presence, not philosophy, did the 
work. Saturated with Poyen's theories of mesmer- 
ism and Dods' doctrines of electrical currents, he 
was forever trying to convey sometliing of himself to 
his patients, some subtle fluid or invisible essence. 
He never eliminated his personality. 

Quimby was not even a religious man. He habit- 
ually and stoutly denied the Messianic mission of 
Jesus, declaring that Jesus was a healer and never 
intended to establish a religion. His notion of the 
Creator was confused with ideas of nature, and he is 
said to have called God the Great Mesmerizer or 
Magnet. Possessing neither education nor the least 
training in philosophic thinking, and having no real 
religious faith, this man was ill-equipped for stating 
a philosophy. Moreover, his belief in his personal 
magnetism blocked the way for forming a sound phil- 
osophic doctrine, even if his lack of cultivation had 
been modified by reading and scholarly association. 

Quimby has been delineated that he may have his 
due, — Quimby the illiterate mesmerist, Quimby 
the blundering and stumbling reasoner, Quimby the 



90 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

kindly, sympathetic healer, above all, Quimby the 
unconscious hypnotizer. Ignorance will cover all 
his errors, good intentions all his accomplishments. 
He would never have claimed to have originated 
anything had he known all there was to be known of 
Mesmer. Quimbyism was but an excrescence on the 
natural growth of mental suggestion from Mesmer to 
the Nancy school. Quimbyism is not embryonic 
Christian Science; it is merely Mesmerism gone 
astray. 

When Mary Baker entered Mr. Quimby's office 
he sat down beside her, as was his custom with his 
patients, to get into the sympathetic and clairvoyant 
relation with her nature which he called rapport. 
Gazing fixedly into her eyes, he told her, as he had 
told others, that she was held in bondage by the 
opinions of her family and physicians, that her 
animal spirit was reflecting its grief upon her body 
and calling it spinal disease. He then wet his hands 
in a basin of water and violently rubbed her head, 
declaring that in this manner he imparted healthy 
electricity. Gradually he wrought the spell of 
hypnotism, and under that suggestion she let go the 
burden of pain just as she would have done had 
morphine been administered. The relief was no 
doubt tremendous. Her gratitude certainly was 
unbounded. She was set free from the excruciating 
pain of years. Quimby himself was amazed at her 
sudden healing ; no less was he amazed at the inter- 
pretation she immediately placed upon it, that it had 
been accomplished by Quimby's mediatorship be- 
tween herself and God. 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 91 

She had come to Quimby prepared to find him a 
saint who healed by virtue of his religious wisdom, 
and as soon as she met him she completed her men- 
tal picture, endowing him with her own faith. Thus 
the hypnotist had almost nothing to do. Her faith 
returned upon her, flooding her with radiance, heal- 
ing her of her pain. The modest mesmerist was 
astonished at the faith he believed himself to have 
evoked. It covered him with confusion to have her 
religious emotion, engendered by years of suffering, 
ascribe to him a spiritual nature which he knew he 
did not possess. 

Mrs. Patterson's case struck Quimby as one of 
his most remarkable cures. He watched with in- 
terest for her return on the following day and his 
gratification was equal to her gratitude when he 
found that she was apparently in the same radiant 
condition of well-being as when she stood erect the 
day before and said she was well. However, he 
again administered his mesmeric treatment, stroking 
her head, shoulders, and back, until she declared 
she felt as if standing on an electric battery. 

"It is not magnetism that does this work, doctor," 
she declared. *'You have no need to touch me, nor 
disorder my hair with your mesmeric passes." 

*'What then do you think does the healing .P" he 
asked. 

'* Your knowledge of God's law, your understand- 
ing of the truth which Christ brought into the world 
and which had been lost for ages." 

Quimby sat abashed. He was not religious, wor- 
shipful, or reverent, but he caught at the wonder of 



92 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

this idea, the glory of it, and vaguely conceived the 
renown of it. He stumbled, however, in his first 
step to the pedestal of a greatness which he knew 
was not his. 

''I see what you mean," he said musingly, *'that 
Christ has come into the world again; but in that 
case I must be John and you Jesus." 

Delicate religious apprehension and clear mental 
acumen developed by years of prayer, study, and 
discussion had fitted Mary Baker's mind to meet 
such a statement. She took instant umbrage at the 
startling irreverence. 

"That is blasphemy," she declared quietly, and 
Quimby's eyes, already half whimsical over his ten- 
tative remark, dropped before hers. He became 
instantly serious, and said : 

''I did n't mean it so ; I don't understand the way 
you explain your cure. No one before ever believed 
it was divine truth that operated through me. They 
have said I healed through some mysterious force in 
myself. I have told them it was healthy electrical 
currents together* with my 'Wisdom' that I imparted 
which effected the cure. But the faith in Christ 
which you declare enables me to heal I have not. 
It makes me think it is your faith in Christ that heals 
you, and all I can do is to acknowledge it. If the 
spirit of Christ is with you and I acknowledge it, 
then I bear the relation to you of John to Jesus." 

As is very well known to-day the subject under 
hypnosis reveals the inner recesses of his mind and 
gives up to the hypnotizer the thoughts of years. 
Mrs. Patterson remained for three weeks in Port- 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 93 

land and was daily at Mr. Quimby's office. Quimby 
always spoke of her as a remarkable woman and 
would daily question her as to her understanding of 
her cure. She regarded him with the enthusiasm 
one rescued from drowning feels for the swimmer 
who has brought him to shore. She continually in- 
vested his mind with her own ideas. He was eager 
to take advantage of her superior mental qualifica- 
tions to add something to his '* Wisdom," and he 
would converse with her by the hour for that purpose. 

*'You say there is a principle which governs the 
healing," he would remark. "Now what do you 
think that principle is.?" 

"I think it is God," she would reply. *'You 
should understand, Dr. Quimby, much better than I 
that this is not your magnetism or. your wisdom but 
God's truth. I try to understand my cure every day, 
but I am still confused. You should make clear 
statements concerning your understanding of this 
truth for your patients' sake, not in scribbled notes, 
but in a developed argument summed up in a treatise. 
There must be a truth underlying your healing. 
Do you analyze your processes?" 

"I do not understand entirely what I do," the 
doctor would say; ''so how can I make the patient 
understand?" 

"But there can be no science of health until the 
laws can be stated," Mary Baker would reply. "If 
this is a philosophy it can be reduced to philosophic 
arguments. This is a very spiritual doctrine, the 
eternal years of God are with it, and it must be 
stated so that it w^ill stand firm as the Rock of Ages." 



94 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Such portentous appreciation greatly excited the 
ambition of Quimby. He desired to measure up to 
this conception of himself and his work. He would 
retire to his study after treating to attempt to re- 
duce a history of his cures to a science. He gath- 
ered from Mrs. Patterson's conversation that he 
should write something, and perhaps with a quite 
innocent idea of copying a model he asked her to 
write something out first. For this purpose he 
gave her some notes he had made, commenting on 
the symptoms of recent patients. She took these 
to her boarding-house and occupied several days 
striving to piece them into an essay. 

Her efforts were not a brilliant success. His pen- 
ciled thoughts continually contradicted themselves 
and not only themselves, they directly contradicted 
her conception of her own cure or any other she had 
known of. When Mrs. Patterson talked with 
Quimby, he did not contradict her ; on the contrary, 
he quickly adopted both her language and ideas; 
but such words as science, principle, truth, inserted 
at random in his subsequent notes, found no place in 
his jumble of theories and produced an extraordinary 
result. As an example of this result, the following 
quotation is said to be from Quimby's pencil : 

I will now try to establish this science or rock, 
and upon it I will build the science of life. My 
foundation is animal matter or life. This set in 
action by wisdom produces thought. Thoughts, 
like grains of sand, are held together by their own 
sympathy, wisdom or attraction. Now man is 
composed of these particles of matter, or thought. 



THE APOTHEOSIS OF A HYPNOTIST 95 

combined and arranged by wisdom. As thought 
is always changing, so man is always throwing off 
particles of thought and receiving others. Thus 
man is a progressive idea ; yet he is the same man, 
although he is changing all the time for better or 
for worse. iVs his senses are in his wisdom, and 
his wisdom is attached to his idea or body, his 
change of mind is under one of the two directions 
either of this world of opinions or of God or Science, 
and his happiness or misery is the result of his 
wisdom. 

Though Mary Baker's own pure stream of re- 
ligious thought wrought such confusion to Quimby's 
materialistic theories as to make his utterances sound 
like philosophy gone mad, her cure, whether a tem- 
porary one wrought under hypnotism, or a perma- 
nent one achieved through a momentary realization 
of God, was secure. She consistently maintained 
that God was the "wisdom" Quimby brought to his 
patients. Quimby never told her so, and the hypno- 
tist to-day would say that Quimby may have allowed 
her to hypnotize herself with that thought. How- 
ever that may be, by seeing God as the principle of 
her cure, she stood safe on her own foundation, laid 
in the years of orthodox religious experience, though 
she was not to understand this until Quimby the 
hypnotizer lay in his grave. 

Quimby really seemed to desire to adopt the idea 
of bringing God to his patients and would declare 
with all the wisdom he had that God was the great 
mesmerizer. Continuing to mesmerize his patients, 
he began to occupy the position of a lesser god in 
the minds of many who gathered round him. They 



96 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

quickly took up this idea of God as the great 
mesmerizer, and Quimby in a sense became His 
representative. When Quimby, "condensing his 
identity," would visit them in waking hours of the 
night, or when they had returned to their homes, 
it was to them the shadow of the Almighty. This 
produced hypnotism more absolute than anything 
Quimby had hitherto dreamed of. It quite appreci- 
ably increased his success as a healer. Though he 
acquired the idea of God as the healer from Mary 
Baker, he reversed it and made of the Supreme 
Being a necromancer. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE MYSTERY OF THE QUIMBY MANUSCRIPTS 

THROUGH the writings of Mary Baker on what 
she thought Quimby beheved, " Quimbyism " 
and Quimby manuscripts came to have a factitious 
existence. Her writings were given into Quimby 's 
keeping and were doubtless copied by other patients ; 
her explanations of his cures were often accepted 
instead of Quimby's, even Quimby himself accept- 
ing them in part, flattered at the interpretation put 
upon him and his work. A curious commingling of 
mesmerism and religious faith resulted from the 
association of these distinctly differing minds, and 
the manuscripts handed from one to another per- 
petuated this confusion. 

Mary Baker dwelt long under the influence of 
Quimby's mesmeric belief and it came to have a 
great, though not supreme, significance in her later 
teaching, the significance of a counterfeit of the 
truth she was later to discover and proclaim. 
From 1862 to 1866 were for her so many years in 
the wilderness, after which came that search for 
the mountain which was to be her Horeb, and 
which had first been shown her by illumination 
when in Rumney she healed the child of blindness. 
A sublime faith held her firmly through this period 
of confusion as it did through subsequent travail 



98 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of spirit, but the confusion, temporarily wrought in 
her, induced her to give honor where honor was 
not due. 

In later years, roused by the assault of critics 
hostile to her restatements of Christ's teachings, 
Mrs. Eddy wrote fearlessly of her confused condi- 
tion at this period. She related how for years she 
struggled with the effects of Dr. Quimby's practise, 
acknowledging that she had written and talked of 
him with ignorant enthusiasm until she realized the 
harmful influence of teaching such ''a false human 
concept." She said: 

It has always been my misfortune to think peo- 
ple bigger and better than they really are. My 
mistake is to endow another person with my ideal 
and then to make him think it his own. ... I would 
touch tenderly his [Quimby's] memory, speak rev- 
erently of his humane purpose, and name only his 
virtues, did not this man [Julius Dresser] drive me 
for conscience's sake to sketch the facts. ... I 
was ignorant of the basis of animal magnetism 
twenty years ago, but know now that it would dis- 
grace and invalidate any mode of medicine. The 
animal poison imparted through mortal mind by 
false or incorrect mental physicians, is more de- 
structive to health and morals than are the mineral 
and vegetable poisons prescribed by the matter 
physicians. ... I denounced it [Quimby's method] 
after a few of my first students rubbed the heads 
of their patients and the immorality of one student 
opened my eyes to the horrors possible in animal 
magnetism. I discovered the Science of Mind heal- 
ing and that was enough. It was the way Christ 
had pointed out; and that had glorified it. My 



THE MYSTERY OF THE QUIMBY MANUSCRIPTS 99 

discovery promises nothing but blessing to every 
inhabitant that walks the globe.^ 

The confusion of her ideas with Quimby's in her 
early writings, which were widely copied and cir- 
culated, gave rise to the Quimby manuscript tra- 
dition. This tradition grew into a controversy 
which deserves some explication, lest, in treating it 
as negligible, a fabulous fame of incongruous origin 
shall be perpetuated. The existence of writings of 
any consequence which are veritable Quimby manu- 
scripts would be negligible were it not for the pos- 
sible confusion of them with Mary Baker's writings. 
Veritable Quimby manuscripts are absolutely hypo- 
thetical, as hypothetical as was the inheritance of 
Mme. Therese Humbert of Paris. It will be re- 
membered that credit for an enormous sum was 
secured for a period of over twenty years by the 
Humbert family on a basis of nothing. Nay, not 
upon nothing. Mme. Humbert had a copy of a will, 
and she had an affidavit from a notary that securi- 
ties representing the property she claimed to be 
heir to were sealed in a strong box and held for her 
in the safe of a bank. When the court finally ordered 
this strong box opened, it was found that there were 
not securities for twenty millions, but there were one 
thousand dollars, a few copper coins, and a brass 
button. Eleven millions had been advanced on this 
absurd basis. 

The Quimby claim is a purely intellectual one 
and the credit secured has been an extravagant 

^ Christian Science Journal, June, 1887. 



100 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

belief, a belief which provokes unjust and invidi- 
ous suspicion as to the origin of the fundamental 
principles of Christian Science. To show how base- 
less is this suspicion, it is necessary to examine the 
Quimby claim. 

Some twenty years after Quimby's death (which 
resulted from a tumor of the stomach in 1866), 
when Christian Science had been placed on a firm 
foundation, it began to be contended by Quimby's 
son and a former patient of Quimby that he had left 
manuscripts on a number of subjects, setting forth 
a system of philosophy. Jealously guarding the 
proof of his claim, the son, by indirect assertion, 
implied as his reason for not publishing the alleged 
manuscripts that their authorship would be claimed 
by the author of ''Science and Health" if he pub- 
lished them during her lifetime. 

This is a rather strange suggestion, but it sets 
forth the shadow of a fear justified by circum- 
stances. It has been shown that Mrs. Patterson in 
1862 wrote certain manuscripts for Quimby and 
gave them to him. She repeated this generous, if 
unprofitable, act in the early part of 1864, when she 
spent two or three months in an uninterrupted 
effort to fathom and elucidate ''Quimbyism." It 
seems almost incredible that a woman of her intel- 
lectual and spiritual development should have de- 
voted so long a period to the struggle of formulating 
a philosophy out of the chaotic but dogmatic utter- 
ances of this self-taught mesmerist. But there was 
a deep-lying reason for this long struggle, which was 
bound to end in dire failure, and the reason both for 



THE MYSTERY OF THE QUIMBY MANUSCRH^TS 101 

the struggle and for the failure could only be made 
known to her by the extraordinary and impressive 
circumstance of an original discovery. 

As the deviation of the needle from the true North 
caused mariners to investigate for centuries the cause 
of deflection until the eminent scientist, Lord Kelvin, 
successfully insulated the compass, so, though she 
subsequently discovered the principle of mind heal- 
ing, it was not until Mary Baker learned what 
''Quimbyism" really was, namely magnetism, that 
she came to understand why she so long strove in 
vain to have Quimby unfold to her that which was 
not his to give, why she so long sought for principle 
where there was no principle. Quimby was navi- 
gating without a compass, and his zigzag course 
could only fetch home by accident. 

But Quimby believed in his own course as the 
true one. While he acknowledged to other patients 
that he was delighted with Mrs. Patterson's enthu- 
siasm and asserted that her perception of truth was 
keener than that of any other of his patients, it is 
not in evidence that he ever gave her credit for a 
scope which exceeded his, save in religious appre- 
hension, which to him was not authoritative. He 
received from Mrs. Patterson manuscripts to which 
she unselfishly and unguardedly signed his name. 
These manuscripts in Mrs. Eddy's handwriting, 
interlined with Quimby's emendations, may still be 
in existence. 

Lest the implied reason for not publishing 
the alleged Quimby manuscripts — the fear that 
their authorship would be disputed — should be 



102 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

retroactive, there is still another reason advanced. 
This reason, too, is given only by implication, but 
it is worthier of commendation than the former. The 
second reason is the illiteracy of Phineas Quimby, 
for which he was in no wise to blame, but which, as 
has been shown, prevented his accomplishing any- 
thing in the way of literature.^ 

^ The author made the journey in the depth of winter to the little town of 
Belfast, Maine, off the main line of travel and somewhat difficult of access, to 
see, as I supposed, the Quimby manuscripts. Arriving there the custodian 
of the manuscripts, George A. Quimby, said to me: 

"If all the people who have come to see me in the past twenty years about 
these manuscripts of my father were fishes and were laid head and tail together 
they would stretch from here to Montana. If all the letters that have been 
written to me on the subject were spread out they would make a plaster that 
would cover the country." 

When I asked Mr. Quimby for permission to see these much-talked-of 
manuscripts, he took from a drawer in his desk a copybook such as school 
children use to write essays in. It was in a good state of preservation, not 
yellowed by age, and was written in from cover to cover in a neat copyist's 
hand. There were no erasures, or interlineations, no breaks for paragraphs 
and very few headings. There were dates at the end of the articles, of which 
there appeared to be two or three different ones in the book. The dates were 
1861 and 1863. 

"Is this your father's handwriting? " I asked Mr. Quimby. 

"It is not ; that is my mother's, I believe, and here is one in the handwriting 
of one of the Misses Ware." 

IMr. Quimby went to a great iron safe in the wall of his office and brought 
out six or eight more books of a similar character. I glanced through the pages 
and saw that all were written in this style with some variation in the handwriting 
and then asked: 

"Are none of these in your father's handwriting?" 

"No, they are all copies of copies. . . . These are the only manuscripts I 
have shown to any one and the only ones I will show." 

"But," I objected, "there have recently been printed facsimile reproduc- 
tions of your father's manuscripts over the date 1863 in which appears the 
words 'Christian Science.' I particularly wished to see that manuscript." 

"I am showing you exactly what I showed others. That is the very page 
that was photographed." 

"And in whose writing is this?" 

"My mother's, I beheve, or possibly one of the Misses Ware; . . . they are 



THE MYSTERY OF THE QUIMBY MANUSCRH^TS 103 

*'My father was self-educated," said Mr. Quimby, 
"but he had read a great deal. His head was full 
of speculative ideas and he was constantly writing 
down his thoughts. He wrote without capitalizing 
or punctuating. His mind was always ahead of his 
pen, and he would not paragraph or formulate his 
thoughts into essays. I guess many of his words 
were misspelled too." 

If the son cherished and guarded the papers 
containing his father's original notes, there must 
have been some more sufficient reason, which he 
alone knew, why he so long withheld them from 
publicity. He for years refused to submit them 
for inspection to any person competent or incom- 
petent to judge of their value. Under the most 
urgent demand he failed to bring them forth into 
the hght, to allow a friend in dire need to use them 
in defence in a suit at law, or to permit a distin- 
guished scholar to prepare a brief in their inter- 
est. Literary men, lawyers, and journalists have 
urged their exhibition in vain. In 1887 Mrs. Eddy 

copies of things my father wrote. He used to write at odd moments on scraps 
of paper whatever came into his mind." 

"And have you those papers now?" 

"Yes, I have." 

"Will you let me see a few pages of them?" 

"No, I will not. No one has seen them and no one shall. ... I tell you 
they have all been after them, Arens, Dresser, Minot J. Savage, Peabody, and 
these recent newspaper and magazine investigators. But I have never shown 
them. Dr. Savage wTote me that I owed it to the world to produce them." 

"And did you not think so?" 

"No. I have said I will never print them while that woman lives," 

"Do you mean Mrs. Eddy?" 

"That is just who I mean." 

— Human Life, April, 1907. 



104 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

advertised that she would pay for their publication. 
But for some deep and inscrutable reason it has 
been impossible to unveil them. 

The conclusion seems warranted that there is 
nothing worthy of the name of manuscripts in the 
Quimby safe. It may be that there are certain de- 
posits of fragmentary pencilings of Phineas Quimby. 
It may be that there are certain of Mrs. Eddy's 
writings there. It may be that these writings are 
interlaced, and to produce one is to produce the 
other. Thus the Quimby manuscript tradition 
may rest, not on nothing, but, as in the Humbert 
will case, on something so near to nothing as to be 
negligible of consideration. 

But though the original manuscripts, if such there 
be, have never seen the light, it must be understood 
that George A. Quimby has exhibited some writings 
which he calls Quimby manuscripts. These are a 
series of copybooks filled with writing. Originality 
is not claimed for these writings which are described 
as copies of copies of Phineas Quimby 's notes, but 
only are they so described when exact information 
is required. Ordinarily they are loosely called by 
Mr. Quimby, ''my father's manuscripts." 

Authenticity is rendered doubtful for these writ- 
ings, because, not only has no one ever seen the 
originals on which they are said to be based, but 
also because the world never heard of these copy- 
books until after "Science and Health" had long 
been published, was in its third edition, and the 
book and its philosophy had begun to make a stir 
in the world of thought. It would have to be shown 



THE MYSTERY OP THE QUIMBY MANUSCRH'TS 105 

clearly upon what they are based to clear them of 
the possibility of plagiarisra. It is possible they are 
of an earlier date than when they first came to be 
spoken of; it is possible they are enlargements on 
conversations held with Phineas Quimby by the 
patients who made the transcriptions; it is pos- 
sible they are emended Mary Baker writings. 

But unless originals exist, how can these copy- 
book writings be authenticated ? Yet the copybook 
manuscripts with their uncertain dates, the ''copies 
of copies," are all that is meant when critics of 
Christian Science refer ambiguously to Quimby's 
wtI tings. These copybooks have been evasively ex- 
hibited in lieu of the original Quimby notes, and 
the owner of the copybooks has allowed books to 
be written from them on the philosophy of Quimby, 
has given out photographs of their pages as fac- 
simili of Quimby's manuscripts, and has generally 
led the world to believe they were the writings of 
his father. He appears himself to be a victim of 
the Quimby manuscript tradition. 

If the copybook manuscripts themselves were 
published, illustrated with original Quimby notes, 
illiterate scrawls it may be, yet the genuine pencil- 
ings of Phineas Quimby, some interest might be 
evoked for them. But until this act of sincerity be 
performed, so far as the evidence goes Quimby left 
no writings. 



CHAPTER IX 

MESMERISM DOMINANT 

BELIEVING somewhat in Quimby as a pro- 
found sage and saintly man, Mrs. Patterson, to 
the astonishment of her family, returned to Til ton a 
well woman. Before leaving Portland she ascended 
to the dome of the city hall by a stairw^ay of one hun- 
dred and eighty-two steps to signalize her complete 
recovery from spinal weakness. Attributing her 
well-being entirely to Quimby and asserting that he 
was not a Spiritualist or a mesmerist, she wrote two 
articles for the Press of Portland, giving him the 
honor of her cure and revealing a gratitude so heart- 
felt and sincere that the most cynical must have ad- 
mitted her generosity. In one article she said she 
could see dimly and only as trees walking the great 
principle which underlay his works. 

That neither Quimby nor any of his patients could 
discern this principle, and that he did constantly 
resort to Spiritualistic clairvoyance for diagnosis and 
to mesmerism for healing, made no alteration in the 
faith of Mary Baker. She heard and saw only what 
was in her own mind and experience, and continued 
to identify publicly and privately her faith with 
Quimby's in the face of all the evidence to the con- 
trary and his own occasional expostulation. The 
Portland public, reading her articles, fairly caught 



MESMERISM DOMINANT 107 

its breath and asked in amazement, ''What, this 
Quimby compared to Christ! well, what next?" 
In her attitude toward Quimby she was hke a 
daughter ideahzing a father whom all the world 
knows to be other than she thinks him. Con- 
trolled by her search for the ideal, Mary Baker 
was to this extent controlled by mesmerism. 

On arriving at her sister's home she talked to the 
various members of her family and all their intimate 
friends about Quimby's power to heal, talked until 
she really excited in her sister Abigail a curiosity to 
know something of Quimby. The handsome boy, 
Albert, whose birth had been largely responsible for 
the banishment of Mary's son, George Glover, had 
grown up into a rather wayward young man. Abi- 
gail wanted her boy cured of his habits and she in- 
structed Mary to write "Dr." Quimby to come to 
them, as he professed himself able to do, spiritually, 
or in his ''condensed identity," or by his "omni- 
presence," and give Albert the benefit of his mag- 
netic "wisdom." As nothing resulted from the 
writing to change Albert's habits, Mrs. Tilton 
determined to go herself to Portland. She made the 
journey with a woman friend about a month after 
Mary's return, but she returned home confirmed 
in her own mind that Quimby was exactly what she 
had previously supposed him to be, an ignorant 
quack with a jargon of cant which made no impres- 
sion upon her. She was gratified that Mary was 
cured, but what had cured her she failed to compre- 
hend from her experience with Quimby. Abigail 
Tilton came near to the truth, however, when she 



108 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

told her family that it was Mary's own faith and 
had nothing whatsoever to do with the Portland 
mesmerist. As for Albert, he was not benefited, and 
his life ended in an early death. 

Mrs. Patterson's restored health made possible 
her activity in her husband's interest. She shortly 
made a journey to Washington with letters from 
the governor of New Hampshire to President Lin- 
coln, to intercede for his release from prison. Offi- 
cial action was set in motion and about the holiday 
season she returned to Tilton happy over the prob- 
able outcome of her trip. Shortly afterwards Dr. 
Patterson was released and he also came to Tilton. 
He was penniless, threadbare, and emaciated, a 
spectacle to excite commiseration. His share in the 
fortunes of war had been inglorious and bitter, but 
he had a thrilling tale to unfold and was eager to 
relate it. Through the assistance of his brother in 
Saco, Maine, and his wife's intervention for him 
with her own family, he soon recovered his former 
prosperity, but did not at once resume his dental 
practise, nor did he seem disposed to reassume his 
domestic obligations. Some natural toleration was 
felt by all who knew him for his desire for a vacation 
and he was humored in an imaginary importance 
which impelled him to a lecture tour. So he departed 
on a leisurely round of visits to the various towns 
where he had formerly practised, speaking on his 
prison experiences. 

Mrs. Patterson remained with her sister and took 
an active interest in the sewing circles which were 
organized to provide garments for the soldiers and 



MESMERISM DOMINANT 109 

lint and bandages for the hospitals. In this work 
both sisters were active and much together in their 
old-time affectionate intimacy. With her wasting 
illness gone, Mrs. Patterson recovered her early 
comeliness, her cheeks again became rosy, her eyes 
sparkling, and her spirits gay. She wrote a letter at 
this time to Quimby in which she said, ''I am as 
much an escaped prisoner as my dear husband 
was." 

All through the summer she remained at Tilton, 
active in charitable work; but in the fall her sense 
of private duty and personal obligation led her to go 
to Saco, the early home of her husband. Here she 
visited his brother and was for a time with her hus- 
band, whom she endeavored to persuade to return 
to his practise. His wander-fever was not yet satis- 
fied, but he agreed to make an effort to establish 
himself, and for this ultimate object went to Lynn, 
Massachusetts. 

Disappointed in his purposeless conduct, Mrs. 
Patterson felt a spiritual depression overtaking her. 
It seemed likely that she was going to find it difficult 
to reconcile her husband to orderly living, just when 
her improved health made life seem to stretch before 
her invitingly with many avenues open for usefulness. 
Her perplexity was so serious that it amounted to 
anxiety, and now she experienced a return of a num- 
ber of minor ailments and illnesses which threatened 
to culminate in a serious renewal of suffering. 

Was this cure of hers, so widely proclaimed, to 
lapse, and was she again to return to the old misery ? 
In the year which had just passed she had been 



no THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

more or less absorbed in the world, traveling, and 
actively working in the relief organizations. Her 
religious life had not been exclusively absorbing, for 
she had been conforming more to the customary 
ways of the world than for many years. But if she 
could not take her understanding of God's laws into 
every-day life and use it to meet the shock of events, 
of what use was it to her or to others, how could she 
really claim to possess an understanding.? She be- 
gan to see that she had not possessed herself of clear 
and definite understanding, or any sound philoso- 
phy ; and with the hope that she would yet acquire 
such an enlightenment from Quimby, she left the 
home of her husband's family and went again to 
Portland. This was in the early part of 1864. 

During this sojourn in Portland Mrs. Patterson 
resided at a boarding-house where were also living 
two other of Mr. Quimby's patients, Mrs. Sarah 
Crosby and Miss Mary Ann Jarvis. They became 
acquainted and shortly a friendly intimacy was 
established among them all on the basis of their 
common interest. Mrs. Crosby had an especially 
vigorous personality and was later to show herself 
possessed of considerable business ability. At the 
time of her meeting Mrs. Patterson she had been 
broken down in health by the birth of several chil- 
dren and thought her vitality exhausted. 

Mrs. Crosby's experience under Quimby's treat- 
ment was like Mrs. Patterson's in outward seeming. 
He sat opposite her and gazed fixedly into her eyes ; 
he laid one hand on her stomach and one on her 
head to establish an electric current; and finally 



MESMERISM DOMINANT 111 

rubbed her head vigorously and told her his spirit 
would accompany her home. In describing him 
she says he was a *' natural healer." 

It was the custom of the patients to take their 
treatment in the morning and the afternoon hours 
were largely spent in disentangling each other's hair 
from the mesmerist's snarling and their ideas from 
his confusing statements. Mrs. Patterson did not 
linger long with this feminine seminar. Quimby 
frequently invited her to return to his office after he 
was through practising to continue those interviews 
which he had had with her on her previous visits, 
remembering the absorbing discussions of the topic 
of spiritual healing which she had introduced at the 
time. On these occasions she sometimes argued 
long and earnestly with him, endeavoring to lead 
him to accept her ideas and to group his thoughts 
into a logical syllogism. Her evenings were almost 
entirely spent in the attempt to harmonize his no- 
tions with her own spiritual ideas. Mrs. Crosby has 
said that Mrs. Patterson labored long into the night 
at her writings. These are some of the writings 
which supposedly form the basis of the copybook 
literature. 

In the spring of 1864 Mrs. Patterson spent two 
months at Warren, Maine, with Miss Jarvis and her 
consumptive sister, striving to further the work 
Quimby had begun and to complete the cure of the 
consumptive. She had traveled home with the in- 
valids from Portland and they clung to her for heal- 
ing. She was able to help them but little, for now 
she was trying to believe in "Quimby ism" with all 



112 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the force of her nature and she talked Quimbyism to 
the exclusion of all other topics. In Warren she even 
gave a lecture on Quimby's ''science" in the town 
hall, defending him from deism and Spiritualism; 
and in an interview with the editor of the Banner of 
Light, the Spiritualistic organ, she continued this 
defence, much to his bewilderment. For what was 
she, an avowed philosophical Christian, working, 
this gentleman asked. How could she claim to be 
the pupil of a disbeliever in Christ's Christianity — 
a clairvoyant and a magnetic healer.? If Quimby 
was not such, as all who knew him believed, but 
something else which he could not fathom, as 
Mrs. Patterson held, then he wished to see this "de- 
funct Spiritualist" and look into this new doctrine. 
Thus in those days, Mary Baker's divine impulse 
seemed to bring confusion to others. 

In May Mrs. Patterson went to Albion to visit 
Mrs. Crosby. Here a family of numerous members 
dwelt in a large roomy farmhouse and life was car- 
ried on in the patriarchal spirit of the American 
Colonial period. Mrs. Crosby lived with her hus- 
band's family and spent much of her time in the big 
sunny nursery while her mother-in-law directed the 
work of the household. She was delighted to have 
Mrs. Patterson with her, and after years of experi- 
ence in the world, she still looks back to this summer 
and her companionship with Mary Baker as one of 
the most stimulating, interesting, and inspiring 
periods of her Hfe. 

Her little daughter Ada became Mrs. Patterson's 
shadow, following her everywhere, about the house^ 



MESMERISM DOMINANT 113 

on her walks, and bringing her hassock to sit at her 
feet to hear fairy stories when she was not banished 
to outer gloom. She was the first of three young 
girls who were attracted like young disciples by the 
wonder and enthralment of the unfolding, spiritual 
nature which entertained them with glimpses of the 
land of heart's desire. Mrs. Patterson spent a great 
deal of her time here as elsewhere in writing, but 
there were long hours which she passed in conversa- 
tion with Mrs. Crosby, and the latter has said no 
woman was ever such a friend to her, no friend had 
up to that time or has since done so much to help 
her to *'get hold of herself." She has described Mrs. 
Patterson as possessed of a vigorous intelligence, but 
a gentle and refined personality, and witnesses her 
daughter's devotion to the womanly sweetness of 
her guest. 

Spiritualism was a dominant interest in this family 
as in many New England families of the period. 
How Mary Baker strove to overcome the inherent 
superstition in Sarah Crosby, and how Sarah Crosby 
curiously misinterpreted the effort and continued to 
misinterpret through all the years to come makes the 
most illuminating anecdote which can be told of this 
visit. It portrays a source of much offense that has 
trailed its revenge through years, pilloried density 
and wounded pride crying long and loud against the 
sprightly wit that cornered them. 

Mrs. Patterson was radically opposed to Spiritu- 
alism and Mrs. Crosby was almost as strenuously 
set in its defence. She would describe its phenom- 
ena as conclusive argument while Mrs. Patterson, 



114 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

bantering her, protested she could reproduce the so- 
called phenomena. Failing by raillery or argument 
to convince her friend, she resorted to illustration. 
In their conversations of a long summer's afternoon, 
Mrs. Patterson had occasionally reverted to the in- 
fluence her lamented brother had exercised over her 
studies and ideals. She had described his appear- 
ance, talents, and personality with the loving strokes 
of reminiscence which make vivid portraiture. Mrs. 
Crosby was an impressionable listener. She possessed 
a sentimental imagination combined with practical 
energy, and she became enamored of the mental 
picture of the departed Albert Baker. 

To cleanse her mind of such trumpery rouge of 
false sentiment and to administer a sharp corrective 
to her superstition, Mrs. Patterson conceived and 
put in practise an admirable though harmless hoax. 
One day, as Mrs. Crosby has described it, while they 
sat together at opposite sides of a table in the big 
nursery, Mrs. Patterson suddenly leaned back in her 
chair, shivered from head to foot, closed her eyes, 
and began to talk in a deep, sepulchral voice. The 
voice purported to be Albert Baker's, saying he had 
long been trying to get control of his sister Mary. 
He wished to warn Mrs. Crosby against putting en- 
tire confidence in her, for though Mary loved her 
friend, the voice said, life was a hard experiment for 
her and she might come to slight Mrs. Crosby's 
devotion. 

As the message was uncomplimentary to herself, 
Mrs. Patterson expected Mrs. Crosby would shortly 
recognize the pretense and laugh with her over it. 



MESMERISM DOMINANT 115 

Not so. Mrs. Crosby became mysterious, shook 
her head sagely, and declared that she knew what 
she knew. Mrs. Patterson, with a gaiety which she 
rarely indulged, continued the hoax. She pretended 
to go into another ** trance" on the following day to 
inform Sarah Crosby that if she would look under 
the cushion of a certain chair, she would find letters 
from Albert. Mrs. Crosby eagerly did so, and her 
seriousness affected Mrs. Patterson. She had not in- 
tended to really mislead her friend, but seeing that 
she persisted in taking the affair seriously, Mrs. 
Patterson wrote her some good advice, couched in 
language supposedly appropriate to spirit utterance, 
and laid it in the secret place, as good mothers reply 
to the letters written the fairies. These letters Mrs. 
Crosby has kept and has always maintained that they 
came from the spirit land. Though their source was 
in humor, their character was not facetious; they 
were not harsh or misleading, subtle or filled with 
guile ; they are gentle admonishments to right living, 
and cheerful encouragement to believe in the sure 
reward.^ 

It seems unnecessary to point out that this whilom 

* Mrs. Crosby allowed these letters to be printed and the following extracts 
are taken from them : " Sarah, dear, be ye calm in reliance on self, amid all the 
changes of natm'al yearnings, of too keen a sense of earthly joys, of too great a 
struggle between the material and the spiritual. Be ye cahn or you will rend 
your mortal being, and your experience which is needed for your spiritual 
progress lost, till taken up without the proper sphere and your spirit trials more 
severe. Child of earth, heir to immortahty ! love hath made intercession with 
wisdom for you — your request is answered. Love each other, your spirits are 
affined. My dear Sarah is innocent and will rejoice for every tear. The gates 
of paradise are opening at the tread of time ; glory and the crown shall be the 
diadem of your earthly pilgrimage if you patiently persevere in virtue, justice, 
and love." 



116 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

indulgence in nonsense during a rather long and 
tedious visit does not in any sense connect Mrs. 
Eddy with the beHef in Spirituahsm, nor does it 
show levity concerning sacred things. It was simply 
an effort to disabuse a too confiding mind of its 
credulity, which, failing, was turned into a harmless 
toleration of its limitations. Mrs. Crosby very 
shortly after her association with Mrs. Patterson 
took up the study of stenography. She had imbibed 
from Mary Baker's companionship the desire to 
make her life useful. She was one of the earliest 
female court reporters in New England. After a 
business career which netted her a small fortune, 
she settled in Waterville, Maine, where she acquired 
property, and in continuation of her liking for the 
esoteric, she became a member of the society of 
mystic adepts of New York or elsewhere. 



CHAPTER X 

THE DISCOVERY OF THE PRINCn^LE OF CHRISTIAN 

SCIENCE 

IN the autumn of 1864 Mrs. Patterson rejoined her 
husband in Lynn. After some desultory practise 
in the offices of other dentists, he had estabUshed 
himself in an office of his own, and the results of his 
application to business had made it possible for him 
to send for his wife. 

Lynn, a manufacturing center, eight miles from 
Boston, was now to be her home, save for short 
periods, for fifteen years, and here her great dis- 
covery w^as made and first promulgated. Lynn is 
too large and important a city to be thought of as a 
suburb of Boston, though towns more distant from 
the metropolis of New England bear that relation to 
the larger city. Lynn is now a foremost city of 
Massachusetts and was then a thriving town, where 
the largest shoe manufacturer in the world had his 
establishment. It is on the seacoast, but has not a 
shipping port; residential streets skirt the shore; 
there is a broad plaza, sea-wall, and promenade 
along the ocean front, and a beautiful drive connects 
the town with quaint old Marblehead. This drive 
marks the beginning of what is known in New Eng- 
land as the North Shore, which extends all the way 
to Gloucester, about thirty miles, and along which 
stretch of ocean view are situated Manchester-by- 



118 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the-Sea, Prides Crossing, and Magnolia, the summer 
homes of the greatest wealth of America. 

Though Ocean street, Lynn, has many handsome 
residences, — the people living there boasting that 
nothing intervenes between them and Ireland save 
the stormy Atlantic, — still the city is not regarded 
as a summer resort, nor a residential district of 
Boston, but, as a factory town, one of the most 
important shoe factory centers in the world. When 
the American Civil War made a great demand for 
shoes, the old-fashioned method of producing foot 
wear by hand labor was not adequate to meet the 
demand. Men who held patents on machines for 
sewing sole leather found it lucrative to rent their 
machines and many small factories sprang up at 
this time, not only in Lynn, but in other towns 
adjoining Boston where land rent was cheaper than 
in the city and where labor could be attracted. 
Lynn easily led in this industry. Its situation was 
beautiful, the climate healthful, the accessibility to 
Boston with its many advantages easy. This in- 
dustry very early attracted women workers as well 
as men and whole families went into the shoe 
factories, for women and children could operate the 
machines and find employment in the many divi- 
sions of the labor which arose from the factory 
method. Thus the character of a large proportion 
of the population of Lynn is indicated, and it will be 
readily grasped that this was an excellent starting 
point for a great religious work, even as Jesus found 
a seed place among the fishermen of Galilee and 
Paul among the tent-making Thessalonians. 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 119 

The thriving town attracted professional as well as 
business men. A dentist should find plenty to do 
where so many of the population of both sexes 
earned good wages. Dr. Patterson after frittering 
his time away here for months had been to see his 
wife's family and doubtless had been admonished 
by both Mark Baker and Mrs. Alexander Tilton. 
The latter, believing rigidly in the conventionalities 
as she did, thought it not proper that Dr. Patterson 
should keep up his meandering and his desultory 
occupations. His fitful, incoherent busying of 
himself with first one project and then another 
bore no relation to the continuity of existence and 
compelled his wife to remain in suspended expecta- 
tion, a guest of relatives and friends, awaiting his 
mood. Thus Abigail Tilton had taken him to task 
roundly, and smarting under her words, he had 
rented the office in Lynn and, with a revival of 
exuberance and excessive overconfidence, had in- 
serted an advertisement in the local paper in which 
he asked those whom he had met in his brother 
dentists' offices to patronize him in the future and 
stated that he hoped to secure the patronage of *'all 
the rest of mankind." He gradually secured a 
respectable practise, for he was a good dentist and 
might have succeeded very well had he been less idle, 
boisterous, and romantic. But he was a born rover, 
and coupled with his restlessness was a silly vanity 
in his powers of fascination over equally silly and 
romantic women. When Mrs. Patterson rejoined 
him after over two years of separation, it was for but 
a brief reunion of little more than a year's duration. 



120 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

It was her final effort, a serious and praiseworthy 
effort, to reconcile her husband to regular living and 
social obligations. She had no light task in holding 
to right conduct her handsome, wayward, uncouth 
husband, whose nature craved the flesh-pots, the 
gauds and baubles of sentimentalism, the specious 
glamour of notoriety, and over whom ''sweetness 
and light" had but little sway. 

With a loyal devotion Mrs. Patterson strove to 
fulfil her duty as a wife, never betraying what her 
gentler nature suffered in outraged pride, wounded 
sensibility, or humiliated aspiration. This man was 
her husband, she threw the cloak of love over his 
shortcomings and sought to interest and lead him 
into the highest associations with which he could be 
affiliated. During the months which followed, as 
they were not householders and she had no home 
duties, she occupied herself with writing, many of 
her poems and prose articles appearing in the Lynn 
papers. She attended church and became ac- 
quainted with some of the excellent old families 
of the city, of which friendships some interesting 
associations continued throughout a long period of 
her life. 

Mrs. Patterson readily made friends whose at- 
tachment was strong. Her social success was easy, 
and she quickly gained a place of high regard 
among the most reserved. Her immediate conquest 
of strangers was through her indefinable charm 
which among the ruggeder qualities of both men and 
women came like the gentle graciousness of a South- 
erner. Society in New England cities has been 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 121 

remarked for a certain brusqueness, a downrightness 
which often ruffles the stranger. But though the 
New Englander is used to this sort of manner, he is 
not insensible to the gentler appeal and invariably 
falls captive to the foreigner or Southerner who 
more easily practises graciousness. Mrs. Patterson 
was gentle and engaging, her manner in meeting a 
stranger winning and convincing in its frank sin- 
cerity. Her substantial qualities of natural gifts 
and cultivation, however, held what she so readily 
gained. Entering into this larger life of Lynn after 
a long absence from any extended social intercourse, 
she at first felt the instinct to enjoy its natural 
pleasure; but she must have been forced soon to 
the discovery that she could not maintain a social 
life suitable to her breeding, for people who re- 
ceived her with every evidence of pleasure were 
but ill-disposed toward the flamboyant dentist 
whom they must sooner or later encounter. It 
would be remarked as a disappointing and amazing 
bit of social data that so gifted and attractive a 
woman should be married to a man so ordinary, if 
not vulgar. What could follow for Mrs. Patterson 
but a social aloofness and a tuning of her strings to 
suit the necessities ? 

Ordinary was not the word for Dr. Patterson, 
since common persons more often than otherwise 
possess the virtues. Extraordinary was the word 
for him, who was florid, pretentious, and bombastic. 
He who had so effectively disported his frock coat, 
silk hat, kid boots and gloves in the rural mountain 
districts, making artisans and farmers' wives yearn 



m THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

after his departing figure, in the keener social fight 
of Lynn appeared as rather a boorish Beau Brum- 
mel, not overnice in the proprieties. In fact gross 
Impropriety was soon to stamp him unmistakably 
and thereafter claim him for her own. 

Not for the satisfaction, therefore, of any aspira- 
tion of her own, but to interest her husband and give 
him a social environment in which he w^ould not 
trip at every step, Mrs. Patterson joined him in 
uniting with the Linwood lodge of Good Templars. 
The "Worthy Chief" of that organization found 
that Mrs. Patterson wrote for the press occasionally 
and was gifted as a speaker and that when she could 
be prevailed upon to address the lodge, she was 
listened to with unfeigned interest. Her well-stored 
mind invested any subject she handled with vital 
interest and her pleasing address made her a most 
engaging speaker. 

*'Mrs. Patterson was unusual in almost every 
particular," the lodge president has said, ''un- 
usually well-bred, cultivated, and fine-looking, and 
of excellent taste in matters of dress and the toilet. 
Some people would comment unfavorably through 
a sense of inferiority, I firmly believe, and would 
call her affected, for she was unusually scrupulous in 
the observation of social form. She had a quiet 
way about her of commanding attention and in the 
delivery of an address was, in a strangely quiet way, 
impressive." 

With such a member on their lists it was not long 
before the lodge chose her as presiding officer of 
the Legion of Honor, the women's branch of the 



PRmCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 123 

association, and members have said she was in 
this capacity gracious and dignified, displaying a 
courteous charm with executive force. It is Hkely 
that in this office, obscure and unimportant as it 
was, Mrs. Eddy learned her first lessons in organiza- 
tion and leadership. 

Thus the Pattersons lived an outwardly calm and 
decorous existence, and whatever was transpiring 
underneath of social waywardness on the part of the 
husband no outward sign was allowed to manifest 
itself through the wife's deportment. No breath of 
scandal was ever circulated as to their domestic 
harmony. Mrs. Patterson's writings occupied the 
time she spent alone. Some of her poems written at 
this time were outbursts of patriotic feeling. The 
Civil War was drawing to a close, and the woman 
born with the blood of heroes in her veins found 
expression in verse for her deep love of country and 
her sympathy with emancipation. Her poems were 
printed side by side with those of John Greenleaf 
Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Phoebe Gary 
and are preserved in the files of the Lynn papers. 
She wrote of the bells that rang out the proclamation 
of emancipation, of the fighting heroes at the front 
and those fallen in battle, of ''our beloved Lincoln," 
who "laid his great willing heart on the altar of 
Justice." Thus she showed an ardent interest at all 
times in the affairs of her country. While her verse 
would not take rank with either Whittier' s or 
Holmes' in poetic rhythm or diction, it expressed the 
fervor of her heart for the cause of freedom. In 
other instances she revealed an exquisite sensibility 



124 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

to the beauty of nature. Her sublime faith in God 
is a constant and pervading influence in all her 
writing, whether verse or prose. 

Outwardly calm and decorous, Mrs. Patterson's 
interior life was far from tranquil. She had come to 
Lynn from a period of philosophic abstraction, had 
come to fulfil her obligations as a wife and this task, 
as has been shown, was by no means a light or simple 
one. But difficult, almost desperate as it was, and 
doomed to failure in the end, it was not the greatest 
or most important problem of her existence. In 
meeting the demands of such a task she found the 
ordinary exercise of long trained domestic and 
social faculties available. In writing verse and 
news-letters she exercised developed mental powers. 
Her news-letters to the Lynn Reporter from Swamp- 
scott, the suburb in which she lived, were bright, 
gossipy communications in which she mentions 
affairs of the church, the schools, the construction of 
new and beautiful homes, with descriptions of the 
laying out of estates in agreeable schemes of land- 
scape gardening. They indicate that she was a 
special writer of ability with a style peculiar to 
herself which characterized all her later writings. 
They betray a vivacity, color, fancy that give a sense 
of a living, glowing, radiant personality to whom 
life is always a wonderful revelation. 

But underneath all assumption of gaiety and 
social charm, underneath the outward calm and 
sweetness of wifely devotion, there was a desolating 
war going on in the heart of this woman. It betrayed 
itself only occasionally and in half light to those who 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 125 

were most intimately associated with her and was 
the occasion of the withdrawal of some half-prof- 
fered friendships. She spoke too much of religion 
was the complaint of the shallow worldlings. No 
one of them comprehended, save one family of true 
friends, the depth of her struggle at this period. 
Something bigger, greater, more portentous, more 
far-reaching than domestic trials of a tragic charac- 
ter, than even the sense of the struggles of her 
country for honor and perpetuity, — and to Mary 
Baker these struggles were real affairs of her own 
living interest, — yet something more far-reaching 
than home or national life was making war Titanic 
in the subjective regions of her soul. 

So far the effort has been to portray Mary Baker's 
spiritual life side by side with the account of the 
incidents of her worldly experiences. She has been 
shown as a docile little girl absorbed in books, a 
beautiful young woman marrying and leaving home, 
a bereaved widow in her parents' house comforting 
the declining years of her mother, a heart-broken 
mother herself, a much tried wife in a second mar- 
riage, — but through all the various changes in her 
outward fortune her spiritual life had been develop- 
ing consistently. This life, awakened in the days of 
her loving communion with a devout mother, was 
strengthened in her conscientious struggles with a 
dominating Calvinistic father; it was stimulated by 
the uplifting companionship with her clergyman 
teacher ; it w^as confirmed in the subsequent personal 
seeking for God in the cloistered suffering in the 
mountain home. Going out from that cloister she 



126 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

met the first real obstacle to her faith in the weird 
doctrine of Phineas Quimby. How she strove to 
harmonize his strange theories with her faith, how 
she labored to evolve a philosophy from his in- 
coherencies has been related. She had come to a 
crisis when her faith would no longer endure the 
association with ideas so incongruous. Her angel 
fought with the intruder which, veiled in obscurities, 
could not be named or recognized. The battle was 
terrific and it was prolonged. It had begun in 1862 
and was still going on when the year 1866 dawned. 
The woman who was to promulgate a new under- 
standing of Christianity, which would shake the 
world's thought to its center, was undergoing the 
anguish, alarm, and terror of a cataclysmic upheaval 
which she concealed from all the world and bore 
alone. 

She has written of this period that the product of 
her own earlier thought and meditation had been 
vitiated with animal magnetism and human will- 
power, the nature of which she was as ignorant of 
as Eve of sin before taught by the serpent. What 
serpent was to teach Mary Baker the nature of 
magnetism.? That lesson was still far off. The 
unveiling of the angel's face, the shining visage of 
Truth in her heart, was to precede the unveiled 
vision of error by years sufficient for her to grow to 
the fighting stature in the consciousness of its power. 

But now she was all but dominated by the power 
of the darker error she has named mesmerism or 
magnetism, and her mental state was worse than 
the disease which had formerly tortured her body. 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 127 

While held in this state she still ascribed her cure to 
Quimby. His thought, his personality, was still 
obtruding itself between her and God. He was 
squarely in the light. Her religious peace, her faith, 
her spiritual being were threatened. Her anguish 
was intolerable and to no one could she turn for 
counsel to obtain relief. 

Out of this smothered torment in which she 
sounded a deeper hell than Calvinists had ever 
imagined, she was lifted suddenly by a physical 
5hock which set her free for her great discovery and 
revelation. This shock was caused by an accident 
which carried her to death's door and from which 
she recovered in what seems a miraculous manner on 
the third day following. 

This accident has been called, with various shades 
of sentiment, the ''fall" in Lynn. To many thou- 
sands that fall with its subsequent uplifting has been 
the fall of their own torment, mental and physical, 
and the uplifting of their lives with Mary Baker 
Eddy's. The incident or event, as one may look 
upon it according to his own experience, was re- 
corded in the Lynn Reporter of Saturday morning, 
February 3, 1866, as follows : 

Mrs. Mary Patterson of Swampscott fell upon 
the ice near the corner of Market and Oxford streets 
on Thursday evening and was severely injured. 
She was taken up in an insensible condition and 
carried into the residence of S. M. Bubier, Esq., 
nearby, where she was kindly cared for during the 
night. Dr. Gushing, who was called, found her 
injuries to be internal and of a severe nature. 



128 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

inducing spasms and internal suffering. She was 
removed to her home in Swampscott yesterday 
afternoon, though in a very critical condition. 

When this fall occurred Mrs. Patterson was 
returning to her home from some meeting of the 
organization of Good Templars. A party of the 
lodge members was walking with her. She was in 
the full tide of that life which she had taken upon her- 
self as a duty, but which lay so far apart from the 
path her conscience would have had her follow. In 
the midst of apparent light-hearted social gaiety she 
slipped on the ice and was thrown violently. The 
party stood aghast, but soon lifted her and carried 
her into a house, where it was seen that she was 
seriously injured. Then certain of them volunteered 
to sit by her bedside during the night. When the 
physician arrived he said little, but his face and 
manner conveyed more than his words. It was 
apparent to the watchers that he regarded her 
injuries as extremely grave and they believed him 
to imply that the case might terminate fatally. But 
Divine Will had another fate in view for Mary 
Baker. 

Forty years after this event Alvin M. Gushing, 
who was the physician, began to say that it was he, 
and not God, who cured Mrs. Patterson of her 
injuries after the fall. The author interviewed Dr. 
Gushing at Springfield, Mass., in 1907. He stated 
that he administered a remedy which he called the 
third decimal attenuation of arnica which he di- 
luted in a glass of water. He related that Mrs. 
Patterson was taken up unconscious and remained 



NEW PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 129 

unconscious during the night and he beheved her 
to be suffering from a concussion, and possibly 
spinal dislocation. 

On the following morning, having visited her 
twice during the night, he found her still semi- 
conscious but moaning " home, home." He there- 
fore administered one eighth of a grain of morphine 
as a palliative and not a curative, and procured 
a long sleigh in which she was laid wrapped in 
fur robes and carefully driven to her suburban 
residence. 

This physician said he afterwards prescribed a 
more highly attenuated remedy which he himself 
diluted in a glass of water and of which he gave the 
patient a teaspoonful. He did not know whether 
she took more of it or not, but when he called again 
she was in a perfectly normal condition of health 
and walked across the floor to show that she was 
cured. He did not remember being told anything 
at the time of a miraculous cure through the power 
of prayer. But he was, according to his own remi- 
niscence, an unusually popular man at the time, and 
had sixty patients a day. He drove a dashing pair 
of trotters and was much in evidence on the speed- 
way when not in the consulting room. It is possible 
he was told of the manner of the cure, that he did 
congratulate his patient and then forgot the inci- 
dent. But one thing he did not forget, for he 
claimed to have it in his memoranda, and that is the 
remedy he prescribed. He doubtless wrote it down 
in his tablets that the third decimal attenuation 
of arnica had marvelous curative properties for a 

9 



130 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

concussion of the brain and spinal dislocation with 
prolonged unconsciousness and spasmodic seizures 
as concurrent symptoms. 

Mrs. Eddy's account of this accident differed 
from the physician's and she knew what healed 
her and how she was healed and when it occurred. 
She was not responsible for the calling of the phy- 
sician and only took his medicine when she was 
roused into semi-consciousness to have it admin- 
istered, of which she had no recollection. After 
the doctor's departure on Friday, however, she 
refused to take the medicine he had left, and as 
she has expressed it, lifted her heart to God. On 
the third day, which was Sunday, she sent those who 
were in her room away, and taking her Bible, opened 
it. Her eyes fell upon the account of the healing of 
the palsied man by Jesus. 

"It was to me a revelation of Truth," she has 
written. ''The lost chord of Truth, healing as of 
old. I caught this consciously from the Divine 
Harmony. The miracles recorded in the Bible 
which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew 
divinely natural and apprehensible. Adoringly I 
discerned the principle of His holy heroism and 
Christian example on the cross when he refused to 
drink the vinegar and the gall, a preparation of 
poppy or aconite, to allay the tortures of the 
crucifixion." ^ 

A spiritual experience so deep was granted her 
that she realized eternity in a moment, infinitude 
in limitation, life in the presence of death. She 

* Chrintian Science Journal, June, 1887. 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 131 

could not utter words of prayer ; her spirit realized. 
She knew God face to face; she "touched and 
handled things unseen." In that moment all pain 
evanesced into bliss, all discord in her physical 
body melted into harmony, all sorrow was trans- 
lated into rapture. She recognized this state as her 
rightful condition as a child of God. Love invaded 
her, life lifted her, truth irradiated her. God said to 
her, *' Daughter, arise!" 

Mrs. Patterson arose from her bed, dressed and 
walked into the parlor where a clergyman and a few 
friends had gathered, thinking it might be for the 
last words on earth with the sufferer who, they 
believed, was dying. They arose in consternation 
at her appearance, almost believing they beheld an 
apparition. She quietly reassured them and ex- 
plained the manner of her recovery, calling upon 
them to witness it. They were the first doubters. 
They were there on the spot; they had withdrawn 
but a short time since from what they supposed 
was her death-bed. She stood before them fully 
restored to health. They shook their heads in 
amazed confusion. Although the clergyman and 
his wife rejoiced with her, they could not com- 
prehend her statements. But for all the dissent of 
the opinion of friends, and later of medicine and 
theological dogma, Mrs. Patterson escaped, if not 
death, the clutches of lingering illness and suffer- 
ing. 

Mary Baker did more than experience a cure. 
She in that hour received a revelation for which she 
had been preparing her heart in every event of her 



132 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

life. She had really walked straight toward this 
revelation, though seemingly through a backward- 
turning path. The backward-turning was a part of 
the marvelous fitting of her nature, the enlighten- 
ment of her mind for the immense service later of 
delineating the counterfeit of spiritual healing and 
to post the warning signs against the dangers of 
hypnotism. She herself has written of the discovery : 

In the year 1866 I discovered the Christ Science, 
or divine laws of Life, and named it Christian 
Science. God had been graciously fitting me, dur- 
ing many years, for the reception of a final revela- 
tion of the absolute divine Principle of scientific 
being and healing.^ 

When apparently near the confines of mortal 
existence, standing already within the shadow of 
the death valley, I learned these truths in divine 
Science: that all real being is in God, the divine 
Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all- 
powerful and ever-present; that the opposite of 
Truth, — called error, sin, sickness, disease, death, 
— is the false testimony of false material sense — 
of life in matter; that this false sense evolves, in 
belief, a subjective state of mortal mind which this 
same so-called mind names matter, thereby shut- 
ting out the true sense of Spirit.^ 

Of the great discoveries in the world's history it 
may be well to consider a moment which have blessed 
the human race most. The discovery of gunpowder 
and the invention of movable types came in about 
the same period. The discovery of the use of ether 
as an anesthetic and the discovery of Mind-Science 

1 " Science and Health," p. 107. =» Ihid., p. 108. 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 133 

also occurred in relatively the same period. What- 
ever appeals to the senses gains an audience with 
humanity more quickly than the gentler, more insist- 
ent appeal to the intelligence. Yet the former palls 
and dies, and the latter nourishes and lives. Hate, 
war, and death astound us and fill us with consterna- 
tion; thought, love, and life come unawares like 
dawn and grow tenderly, gently into meaning, 
blessedness, and power. Gunpowder created a 
special hell, movable types the blessedness of 
literature. Ether anesthesia brought in its train an 
elaborated surgery; Mind-Science has begun to 
abolish the necessity of surgery, healing of itself the 
lame, the blind, the deaf ; teaching mothers to bear 
children without pain, children to grow normally 
without malformation, men and women to abandon 
evil habits which bring consumption, scrofula, 
leprosy; nations to abandon wars which slaughter 
and cripple and leave a heritage of poverty and 
disease, — slowly but surely it works its way like 
civilization transforming savagery and the jungle. 
It is as fundamentally incontrovertible as the axiom 
that truth is eternal, or that error dies of its own 
nature. 

This great discovery depended largely on the fall 
of Mary Baker in Lynn, causing her to grapple with 
the violence of magnetism, rousing her from a 
mesmeric lethargy, and bringing to her developed 
spiritual nature the understanding of the principle 
of life. There was an interval before she could 
demonstrate what dawned upon her in that hour. 
When the apple fell for Newton and the kettle 



134 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

steamed for Watt, natural scientific truth dawned 
on them, but each must apply himself to make clear 
his conception through years of careful elucidation 
and working out to a demonstrable point his 
scientific statement of principle. Mrs. Eddy writes : 

My discovery that erring, mortal, misnamed 
mind produces all the organism and action of the 
mortal body, set my thoughts to work in new chan- 
nels, and led up to my demonstration of the proposi- 
tion that Mind is All and matter is naught, as the 
leading force in Mind-science.^ 

Indeed her thoughts were to work in new channels. 
She had risen as it were from death. Her friends 
immediately set up an argument that she was self- 
deluded, that she ought to be flat upon her back, that 
she was defying the laws of nature. This clamor of 
fear had a temporary effect upon her ; it bewildered 
her into some doubt of her ability to maintain her 
discovery, even into some doubt as to its basis in 
truth. Two weeks after she had risen from her pros- 
tration she wrote a letter which was a last backward 
glance to Quimby and Quimbyism, — and yet a 
letter which sounded the small notes of the clarion. 
The letter was written to a former patient of 
Quimby, for Quimby was now dead. He had died 
the preceding month and could not again obtrude 
his unformulated theories between her mind and its 
own spiritual apprehensions. Her discovery waited 
for her full comprehension and acknowledgement. 
Yet she wrote a letter which, had it been answered 

» "Science and Health," p. 108. 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 135 

differently, might have taken her back into animal 
magnetism and the confusion of hypnotism. 

In the letter she describes her accident and says 
that the physician attending her had said that she 
had taken the last step she ever would, yet in three 
days she had gotten up from her bed and would walk. 
She says **I confess I am frightened, and out of 
that nervous heat my friends are forming, spite of 
me, the terrible spinal affection from which I have 
suffered so long and hopelessly. Now can't you 
help me ? I believe you can. I think I could help 
another in my condition." 

To this request the former patient replied that he 
did not know how Quimby had performed his cures 
and doubted if any one did. He distinctly declined 
the task of reviving Quimbyism or attempting to 
stand in the shoes of the mesmerist. So there was 
a closed door against that refuge from her own 
responsibility, a refuge which had presented itself 
to her mind as a last temptation. Quimby was 
dead; Quimbyism had perished with him. No 
one remained of those who had gathered round him 
in life to perpetuate his peculiar influence. Her 
fall had destroyed the very work she had so long 
credited him with. Everything must begin anew 
for her; life must be made completely over. She 
was forced to turn to God. 

Her whole environment was about to be changed, 
for she was to be left without family and with the 
barest means of subsistence. Her faith faltered, her 
limbs trembled, but backward she could not go. 
It dawned upon her more and more insistently that 



136 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

God had laid a work upon her. The truth of 
spiritual being had illumined her and to acquaint 
humanity with this truth became imperative. 

Some years after this period, when her work had 
begun to make headway, the patient of Quimby to 
whom she had written came forward to harass her 
with a pamphlet in which he displayed her former 
eulogies of Quimby and her letter to him asking him 
to take up Quimby's work. She replied to this 
pamphleteer in the article on ''Mind Healing 
History" in the Christian Science Journal, from 
which a quotation is given in regard to the manu- 
script controversy. In it she says : 

Was it an evil hour when I exchanged poetry 
for Truth, grasped in some degree the understand- 
ing of Truth and undertook at all hazards to bless 
them that cursed me ? Was it an evil hour when I 
discovered Christian Science Mind-healing and 
gave to the world in my work called "Science and 
Health" the leaves that are for the "healing of the 
nations." Was it for some strange reason that the 
impulse came upon me to endure all things for 
Truth's sake ? Does ceaseless servitude while 
treading the thorny path alone and for others' sake 
arise from a purely selfish motive ? After the death 
of the so-called originator of mind-healing it re- 
quired ten years of nameless experience for me to 
reach the standpoint of my first edition of ''Science 
and Health." It was after the death of Mr. Quimby 
and when I was apparently at the door of death 
that I made the discovery of the Principle of Divine 
Science. After that it took ten years of hard work 
before the first edition of "Science and Health" was 
published in 1875.^ 

^ Christian Science Journal, June, 1887. 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 137 

Mary Baker very shortly began to walk the 
"thorny path" of which she writes, began the 
"nameless experience" with its incidents of painful 
humiliation which she has never recounted or 
disclosed. She has covered this period with the 
brief statement that she retired for a time from the 
world to carry out the work which was before her. 
The first painful incident came quickly on the heels 
of the illness resulting from the fall. Shortly after 
her recovery, Mrs. Patterson's remarkable experi- 
ence centered her attention fully upon the philoso- 
phy of religion. She determined that she would 
state the principle of health and life and that she 
would devote her pen to that purpose; she would 
no longer write for money or fame, but abandon 
herself utterly to, this great cause. 

Dr. Patterson's reaction to the resolution of his 
wife was characteristic. His response to her un- 
worldliness was entirely worldly. He left Lynn 
mysteriously, deserting her, and not only did he 
leave her but he did so shamefully. He eloped with 
the wife of a wealthy citizen who had employed his 
services professionally. Sometime after the partner 
of his adventure came to the house where Mrs. 
Patterson was living and asked to see her. Mrs. 
Patterson received the repentant woman kindly and 
listened to her story. The woman said she had 
presumed to come to beg forgiveness and sue her for 
a favor because Dr. Patterson had so often spoken 
of his wife's religiousness. The favor she had to 
beg of the woman she had wronged was that she 
would make intercession for her with the deserted 



138 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

husband that she might go home. This Mrs. 
Patterson undertook to do and succeeded in bringing 
about a complete reconcihation. She even per- 
suaded the husband to forego a plan he had for 
confining his wife to her apartment for a period of 
penance, and by such persuasion so induced this 
man to allow sweetness and light to prevail that his 
home was thereafter a happy one. This was the 
second time in her life that she performed the 
office of peacemaker for a woman who had been 
party to the desecration of her own home. 

The summer months of 1866 were for Mary 
Baker a time of reconstructing and dedication of her 
life. Her husband had gone, gone forever. She 
could no longer in reason contemplate a life with 
him. He came back to ask forgiveness after the 
elopement; it was in his nature to do that, for to 
him there was no finality to the good-will he ex- 
pected, however great his offense. But his wife did 
not receive him. "The same roof cannot shelter 
us," she said quietly. "You may come in, certainly, 
if you desire, but in that case I must go elsewhere." 
He stood fumbling with his hat upon the doorstep 
and then placed it upon his head. "Of what use 
would that be, Mary.?" he faltered. "No, it is I 
who will go." 

Dr. Patterson thereafter roamed from town to 
town in New England, falling from the social 
standard of conduct on various occasions and losing 
social caste by degrees, until he was forbidden houses 
which had at first received him and, losing his prac- 
tise when well begun in different towns, he at last 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 139 

retired to live the life of a hermit in Saco, Maine. 
In 1873 Mrs. Patterson secured a decree of divorce 
from him in the courts of Salem, Massachusetts. 
Directly after visiting his wife for the last time he 
went once more to the Tiltons. Mark Baker was 
dead; he had passed away the preceding autumn. 
Mrs. Tilton heard the dentist's confession in silence. 
She had nothing to offer by way of advice for the 
patching up of difficulties. She saw they had reached 
a climax. But her practical mind made one sugges- 
tion as the amende honorable for the husband, that 
he should settle some sum, however meager, on 
Mary and not leave her utterly destitute. To this 
the doctor agreed and a sum was fixed upon to be 
paid twice a year. This was continued a few years, 
until Mrs. Patterson refused longer to accept it. 

When the doctor had taken his departure, 
Abigail wrote to her sister to come home. *' We will 
build a house for you next to our own and settle an 
income upon you," she said. "You shall have 
suitable surroundings and not be annoyed by the 
friction of life in another home than your own. We 
can be together very much, and you can pursue your 
writing. There is only one thing I ask of you, Mary, 
that you give up these ideas which have lately 
occupied you, that you attend our church and give 
over your theory of divine healing." 

To this Mary Baker had but one reply, "I must 
do the work God has called me to." But Abigail 
did not believe her sister. She decided to let her 
alone for a time. She felt sure that the grip of 
poverty, the silence of her family, the desertion of 



140 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

her husband would operate in time to bring her back 
to the old relations. She wanted her sister, but not 
keenly enough as yet to sacrifice one iota of her pride. 
Her boy Albert was just twenty-one, handsome, and 
a bit wayward ; but she meant to master that and 
make a successful man of him. Her daughter 
Evelyn was only twelve, delicate, studious, pious, 
the idol of her father. She had great hope of her 
future. So then Mary, the sister, was after all out- 
side her immediate concern, — save only she hoped 
Mary did not mean to disgrace them. 

Sometimes, indeed, she had inward fears lest that 
strange spiritual genius of Mary's really would make 
itself felt in the world and bring the reproach of 
"queerness" upon them. Up to this hour their 
family had been conventional New Englanders, 
farmers, manufacturers, wealthy, influential and 
orthodox both in politics and religion. Mary had 
stood out for abolition when it was unpopular and 
fanatical to do so. Her difference had made the 
townspeople talk years before. She had proclaimed 
curious religious ideas when she was last at home, 
ideas that had made the ladies of the sewing circle 
wonder and gossip. Perhaps after all it was as well 
that Mary should wear out her theories among 
strangers. Some day she would come back to them 
and they would take care of her. So thought 
Abigail Tilton, reckoning and weighing the con- 
tents of the situation with a mind of worldly 
prudence. 

Poor Abigail. Husband and children were to be 
taken from her, too. Strangers who thought mainly 



PRINCIPLE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 141 

of her fortune were to flatter her in her declining 
years of dictation, until dictation was no longer a 
joy. And pride which had separated her from her 
beloved sister so long kept her from imparting her 
last farewell to the one whom she truly loved deepest 
and best. 

So Mary Baker sat alone through these summer 
months. She had her saddest thoughts to scan at 
the beginning and not the close of her career, for to 
her this was truly the beginning. She was forty-five 
years old and had lived through the experiences of 
more than a normal life. Let no one think that even 
the greatest philosopher could contemplate the ruin 
of so many earthly hopes without heart pangs. Her 
child, long ago alienated from her by wile and subter- 
fuge, was now a man roaming through the wild life 
of the West; the husband who had promised so 
much had gone in disgrace to live out his aimless 
whims for many years and die alone in his hermit's 
hut. Her parents were both gone and her sister was 
obdurately set against the deep faith of her heart. 
Without worldly resources or even the social status of 
recognized widowhood, deserted by all who should 
have cherished her, might she not with sanction lay 
her head low to mourn ? 

Whether for many days or weeks she thought on 
these things, certain it is that this same year saw 
her gathering up the strands, strengthening her 
heart with courage, accepting her mission, and 
venturing forth steadfastly upon her destiny never 
again to turn back. From this year the story of 
Mary Baker's life deals with religion. She has 



142 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

given up family for voluntary poverty, society for 
the contemplation of a new faith. She will for a time 
nourish this truth, elucidate it to her own mind with 
her pen, to her own heart with prayer, and in a 
decade will begin the work of promulgation. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 

FOR three years after my discovery I sought 
the solution of this problem of Mind-healing; 
searched the Scriptures, read little else; kept aloof 
from society, and devoted time and energies to discov- 
ering a positive rule. The search was sweet, calm, 
and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing. 
I knew the Principle of all harmonious Mind-action 
to be God, and that cures were produced, in primi- 
tive Christian healing, by holy, uplifting faith; but 
I must know its Science, and I won my way to ab- 
solute conclusions, through divine revelation, rea- 
son, and demonstration. The revelation of Truth 
in the understanding came to me gradually, and 
apparently through divine power.^ 

After a lengthy examination of my discovery, 
and its demonstration in healing the sick, this fact 
became evident to me, — that Mind governs the 
body, not partially, but wholly. I submitted my 
metaphysical system of treating disease to the 
broadest practical tests.^ 

Mrs. Patterson had boarded with her husband in 
several places in Lynn and Swampscott. She had 
made a few excellent friends who were steadfast in 
their interest and loyalty through the hardships 
which were to befall her in the next few years. Of 

» "Science and Health," p. 109. » Ibid., p. 111. 



144 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

tkese friends none were more devoted than the 
Philhpses, an excellent Quaker family. Mr. Thomas 
Phillips was a manufacturer of shoe-findings and 
lived with his family in Buffum street. 

Mary Baker was very devoted to this elderly 
couple whom she called by the endearing names of 
"Uncle Thomas" and "Aunt Hannah." Their 
home became a refuge to her in the summer of 
1866. She did not live with them, but boarded with 
Mr. and Mrs. George D. Clark of Summer street. 
The Clarks lived in their own home, taking in board- 
ers to increase their income. They were a kindly, 
social family. In their home Mrs. Patterson had 
solitude when she desired it, and a friendly demo- 
cratic society when she felt the human yearning for 
sympathetic interest in other lives. For such inde- 
pendence and comparative comfort the charges were 
not heavy. Indeed she could not possibly have met 
them had they been so, for her purse was but scantily 
furnished at this time. 

But to the Phillips home in Buffum street she fled 
for true social and spiritual companionship. They 
were of that excellent breeding which comes of true 
piety, and they cherished this stricken woman, too 
proud to admit herself desolate among strangers, as 
a very lamb of the Lord. Their aged mother lived 
with them. She was a saintly Quaker, who had 
passed her ninetieth year, and as the years rolled 
by and she lived on toward the close of her century 
of human experience, she grew weary of earth. She 
would sometimes say with gentle impatience, "I 
fear the good Father hath forgotten me." One day 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 145 

She refused to rise from her bed, and said to her 
children, "Thee need never bring my gown again." 
She was determined to go, and so she slept sweetly 
out of this world's life. 

But before that calm change came upon her, she 
spent many hours with Mary Baker, hours of mu- 
tual consolation and uplifting. These two women, 
between whom yawned a half century, loved each 
other tenderly, calling one another by her Christian 
name, which in both cases was Mary. Their inter- 
course was of a heavenly sweetness. They would 
sit side by side on a sofa with hands clasped, some- 
times conversing and sometimes meditating. Mr. 
Phillips, returning home and finding them there, 
would call his wife and say, "Hannah, do you see 
our two saints.^ There they sit together, the two 
Marys." 

In this house silent prayer was the custom before 
eating. Mary Baker yielded to this custom with 
great reverence, often saying it seemed to her like 
a holy communion. With Mr. Phillips she had fre- 
quent conversation about her religious views and 
her healing experience, delineating for him the fea- 
tures of her discovery, stating the principle to be 
Divine Life operating in human consciousness. He 
was the first to listen to her intelligently; he was 
the first to see that she was depicting a new mental 
state that would elevate all human existence. Upon 
the aged grandmother her words fell like dew, gra- 
ciously accepted as pious utterances, but scarcely 
understood. Upon other members of the family 
they made but slight impression and, were it not 

10 



146 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

that they loved their guest, they would have been 
guilty of an occasional smile of incredulity. 

Incredulity there must have been among them. 
A daughter of the house was afterward a Christian 
Scientist. She was not a believer in these ideas for 
many years — not indeed until after Mrs. Eddy 
had long passed out of her life with the death of 
her parents. She has related to the author her 
father's impressions of the future founder of Chris- 
tian Science. In rebuking their unbelief he voiced 
a prophecy by saying: '*Mary is a wonderful 
woman, Susie. You will find it out some day. I 
may not live to see it, but you will." 

This daughter Susan married George Oliver, and 
in her own home often entertained Mrs. Patterson. 
Her husband was a business man with a growing 
shoe trade which actively engaged his mind. He 
would, however, neglect to return to his business 
for hours if Mary Baker happened to be at his 
home for luncheon. 

''I cannot understand it," he would say to his 
wife of their guest's conversation, *'but I would 
rather hear Mrs. Patterson talk than make a big 
deal in business. After listening to her arguments 
I feel some way as though I would be the better 
able 'to cast my net on the right side.'" 

It was on Susan Oliver's brother Dorr, then a 
schoolboy, that Mrs. Eddy made her first demon- 
stration of Mind-science. The lad had a bone 
felon which kept him awake at night and out of 
school during the day. Mrs. Patterson had not 
been to the Phillips house for several days, and 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 147 

when she did go and found the boy in agony walk- 
ing the floor, she gently and sympathetically ques- 
tioned him. 

*'Dorr, will you let me heal that felon?" 

"Yes, indeed, Mrs. Patterson, if you can do it," 
replied the lad. 

*'Will you promise not to do anything for it or 
let any one else, if I undertake to cure it.^" 

"Yes, I promise, and I will keep my word," said 
Dorr Phillips. He had heard his father and their 
friend discuss divine healing many times, and had 
a boy's healthy curiosity to see what would happen 
if all this talk was actually tried on- a wicked, tor- 
menting, festering felon that was making him fairly 
roar with rage one minute and cry Hke a girl the 
next. 

That night the boy stopped at his sister Susie's 
house. "How is your finger," she asked so- 
licitously. 

"Nothing the matter with my finger; it hasn't 
hurt all day. Mrs. Patterson is treating it." 

"What is she doing to it.? Let me look at it." 

"No, you'll spoil the cure. I promised not to 
look at it or think about it, nor let any one else 
touch it or talk about it. And I won't." 

The brother and sister looked at each other with 
half smiles. They were struggling with skepti- 
cism. 

"Honest, Dorr, don't it hurt.?" 

"No." 

"Tell me what she did." 

"I don't know what she did, don't know anything 



148 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

about this business, but I'm going to play fair and 
keep my word." 

The boy actually forgot the felon and when his 
attention was called to the finger it was found to 
be well. This strange result made an impression 
on the family. No one quite knew what to say, and 
they were scarcely ready to accept the healing of a 
sore finger as a miracle. 

''But it is not a miracle," said Mary Baker. 
''Nor would it be if it had been a broken wrist or 
a withered arm. It is natural, divinely natural. 
All life rightly understood is so." 

Mr. Phillips said there was something in that 
which he could not understand, and there it rested. 
With peace restored to his body. Dorr Phillips for- 
got all about Divine science. 

At the Oliver home lived a rich young man from 
Boston who had come to Lynn to learn the shoe 
business. He was intense and active, eager to show 
his father his business sagacity. But severe appli- 
cation to business and excitement over his new 
responsibilities threw him into a fever. He was 
brought home from the factory and put to bed, 
where he promptly lapsed into delirium. The 
Olivers saw that he was very ill, and sent for his 
parents. Before they arrived Mrs. Patterson came 
to the house and found Susan Oliver in distress 
over the serious situation. 

' If he should die before they come, what would I 
do.P" she asked excitedly. "Perhaps I should call 
our physician. But they might not like it. He is 
their only child. Think of his prospects, his father's 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 149 

fortune -^ and for him to be stricken in this 
way ! 

"He is not going to die, Susie," said Mary Baker. 
"Let me go in and see him." 

"You may go in, if you think best; but he won't 
recognize you," said Mrs. OUver. 

Mary Baker went into the sick chamber and sat 
down at the side of the bed. The young man was 
tossing from side to side, throwing his arms about 
wildly and moaning. She took his hand, held it 
firmly, and spoke clearly to him, calling him by a 
familiar name. 

"Bobbie," she said, "look at me. You know me, 
don't you.?" 

The young man ceased his monotonous moaning, 
his tossing on the pillows, and his ejaculations. He 
lay quiet and gazed steadfastly at the newcomer. 

"Of course you know me, Bobbie," she persisted 
gently. "Tell me my name." 

"Why, yes," he said with perfect sanity, "it's 
Mrs. Patterson." In a few minutes he said, "I 
believe I will go to sleep." 

He did go to sleep and waked rational, and did 
not again have delirium. His parents came and 
carried the boy off to Boston for medical attention. 
But he escaped espionage of nurse and doctor, and 
of his parents also. They had taken him to the old 
Revere House, where they were living, and had es- 
tablished him comfortably in the famous Jenny 
Lind room. But all this solicitation could not hold 
him. He returned to Lynn and sent word of his 
state of mind and whereabouts to the distracted 



150 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

parents. Mrs. Patterson had made him well in 
spite of the physician's declaration that he was in 
for a run of fever. So simply was the youth's re- 
lease from fever accomplished that none who knew 
of the case would credit her with having done any- 
thing. However, Mary Baker had in this instance 
once more illustrated her discovery. 

Her power to heal the sick was shown once again 
among these friends. The Charles Winslows of 
Ocean street were related to the Phillipses, and Mrs. 
Patterson knew them as intimately as she knew the 
Olivers. Mrs. Winslow had been for sixteen years 
in an invalid chair, and Mrs. Patterson, who occa- 
sionally spent an afternoon with her, desired to 
heal her. 

''If you make Abbie walk," said Charles Winslow, 
"I will not only believe your theory, but I will re- 
ward you liberally. I think I would give a thousand 
dollars to see her able to walk." 

''The demonstration of the principle is enough 
reward," said Mrs. Patterson. "I know she can 
walk. You go to business and leave us alone 
together." 

"But I want to see you perform your cure, Mary," 
said Charles Winslow, half mirthfully. "Indeed, I 
won't interfere." 

"You want to see me perform a cure," cried 
Mary Baker, with a flash of her clear eyes. "But 
I am not going to do anything. Why don't you 
understand that God will do the work if Mrs. 
Winslow will let Him ? Leave off making light of 
what is a serious matter. Your wife will walk." 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 151 

And Mrs. Winslow did walk, walked along the 
ocean beach with Mary Baker and around her own 
garden in the beautiful autumn of that year. She 
who had not taken a step for sixteen years arose 
and walked, not once but many times. Though a 
wonderful thing had been accomplished, the 
woman's pride kept her from acknowledging a 
cure. The method seemed to her so ridiculously 
inadequate. To accept it was like convicting her 
of never having been ill. So she returned to her 
former beliefs. 

Such were some of the jBrst results of Mary Baker's 
efforts to prove that she had grasped a great truth 
and was not asserting an imaginary doctrine of 
fanciful or fanatical origin. She began to see in 
the wilful pride of one patient, the scornful re- 
jection of her services by the parents of another, 
and the kindly indifference of still another, who 
guessed things just happened so when you were not 
watching, that this could not be her field of activity. 
But she had at her very door abundant opportunity 
among the humbler shoe workers. The Phillipses 
were satisfied with their religion and culture; the 
Winslows were wealthy and secure in their own 
well-being. They meant to be her friends and told 
her that the world would say she was mad if she 
continued to preach divine healing. *Tt is better 
not to talk of it," they said. It seemed to them an 
unnatural doctrine, something that might become 
an awkward topic in their drawing-room, some- 
thing that this interesting woman should be per- 
suaded to forget. 



152 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Interesting Mary Baker was, more interesting 
than ever in her Ufe, with a strange power of im- 
pressing the world with the wonder of things which 
was to grow more and more a part of her. A de- 
scription of her appearance at this time and of her 
daily life is afforded through the reminiscences of 
George Clark, the son of the family in which she 
was boarding. He says she was a beautiful woman 
with the complexion of a young girl, her skin being 
fair, the color often glowing in her cheeks as she 
talked; her eyes were deep blue, becoming bril- 
liant and large under emotional interest, and her 
hair falling in a shower of brown curls about her 
face. 

"She usually wore black," says Mr. Clark, "but 
occasionally violet or pale rose in some arrangement 
of her dress. And I remember well a dove-colored 
gown trimmed with black velvet that she wore in 
the summer. I remember the colors because she 
suggested a flower-like appearance; she had a re- 
freshing simplicity about her which made one think 
of lilies. Yes, that is the very flower, because she 
had distinction, too. She was a little above medium 
height, slender, and graceful. Usually she was re- 
served, though her expression was never forbidding. 
But when she talked, and she talked very well and 
convincingly, she would often make a sweeping out- 
ward gesture with her right hand, as though giving 
her thought from her very heart. 

"So characteristic were her gestures that I would 
recognize her to-day were I only to see her out- 
stretched hand. She sat at the head of our table. 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 153 

my mother occupying the center of one side, and I, 
in my father's absence, the opposite seat. From 
this place at our table she easily dominated atten- 
tion when she cared to talk, and she was always 
listened to with interest. Every one liked and ad- 
mired her, though sometimes her statements would 
cause a protracted argument. 

**We were a rather mixed household and were 
fourteen at table. There were several shoe opera- 
tives from the factories, a salesman or two, and a 
man who has since become a well-known bootmaker. 
There was a painter amongst us, who afterwards be- 
came a successful artist in landscape. He was an 
argumentative talker, inclined to be skeptical of 
most things. The wives of several of the men were 
also guests at table, and conversation was usually 
lively, often theological. 

*'My mother had been a Universalist, but she 
was progressive in her views, a come-outer, as you 
might say. She was much interested in Spiritualism 
and used to entertain the Spiritualists. Seances 
were sometimes held at our house. Mrs. Patterson 
sometimes was present at these affairs held in our 
parlor, just as she took part agreeably, but not con- 
spicuously, in any social gathering. You see she 
liked people, liked to meet them unaffectedly and 
kindly, but, mind you, always with that air of dis- 
tinction, that something that made her different. I 
think she was hungry for hearts, if I may so express 
it, but she would draw them up to her level rather 
than go to theirs. 

"On days succeeding a seance my mother would 



154 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

often leave the breakfast room with the ladies to 
talk over the doings of the night before and the na- 
ture of the 'phenomena.' My mother and Mrs. 
Patterson would occasionally get into a lively argu- 
ment, and both expressed themselves most posi- 
tively on opposite sides of the question. They never 
fell out about it, for they were both too well used to 
such divergence of view among their friends. My 
mother was always having to defend her views, and 
indeed so was Mrs. Patterson. They respected each 
other, I may say they had too much affection to 
quarrel. 

"But their arguments were highly entertaining to 
me, and I often wondered how persons holding such 
opposite views could shake hands so amiably over 
their differences. I was a youngster and felt very 
important, for I was going to sea. I used to think 
that when I came back from seeing the world, all 
these religious matters would have become of no 
importance to me. In that I was mistaken, and I 
fancy now that the arguments going on there at my 
mother's table and of an evening when some of the 
party played whist and others gathered around 
Mrs. Patterson were the everlasting and eternal 
arguments of our lives, and that a prophet was 
among us unawares." ^ 

Among the boarders in this mixed and highly 
democratic household were Hiram S. Crafts and 
his wife. The former was known as an expert heel- 
finisher in the shoe factory. He possessed an ordi- 
nary intelligence, a common school education, and 

^ Notes from a conversation with Mr. George Clark in July, 1907. 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 155 

a tendency toward transcendentalism. This tend- 
ency was as marked a characteristic in New England 
middle-classes during the middle years of the last 
century as Puritanism was in England during the 
reign of Charles I, two centuries before. It made 
Unitarianism and Universalism possible as an out- 
growth of Calvinism. 

It may appear extravagant to credit with notions 
of transcendentalism a shoe-worker of Lynn; but 
in great mental movements in a nation such as the 
American, or in a race such as the Anglo-Saxon, his- 
tory has shown that the artisans, craftsmen, and 
farmers share in the intellectual experience of the 
scholars, if that experience is more than a passing 
ripple. This is especially true in the United States. 
If they are somewhat later than the scholars in ar- 
riving at their convictions, the sympathies and antip- 
athies of the laboring class go deeper and are more 
compelling. Their *' feeling" has to be reckoned 
with. Thus it will be recalled that Cromwell sought 
religious men for his army, knowing that unless 
armed with some staying convictions his common 
soldiers could never stand against the gentlemen 
and cavaliers of the forces of the king. 

Transcendentalism is a big mouthful of a descrip- 
tive ; but this term had scholarly origin, being Ger- 
manic, not Yankee or British. A brief history of the 
word may not be impertinent. The term was first 
applied to Kantian philosophy which only a very 
exceptional shoe-worker of New England could have 
been expected to read. How then could a shoe- 
worker acquire tendencies toward such speculations ? 



156 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

But the philosophers may wrap their notions in very 
unusual language and still occasionally coin words 
the vulgar will learn to handle. Kant used this word 
to denote intuitions which the descendants of Puri- 
tans had already analyzed before Emerson made 
the word transcendentalism familiar in New England 
as Carlyle did in old England. Thus it was not left 
for the Yankee shoe-worker to dig it out of the 
Critique. 

A little before the Civil War broke out, in the late 
forties and early fifties, the lyceum system became 
popular in America, especially in New England. 
Courses of lectures were instituted in the small 
towns as well as in the large cities, and the latest 
thoughts in science, art, literature, politics, and phi- 
losophy were given to the people. How democratic 
these audiences were was shown in results. Now 
transcendentalism in both religion and politics began 
to flourish. The working people were ready to be- 
lieve something in religion that released them from 
the pain and cramp of a long-preached doctrine of 
inherent total depravity. The *'rise of man" was 
being substituted for the ''fall of man" and the 
cramp in the brain and the ache in the heart were 
letting go their clutch. 

Much earlier than this the intellectual world had 
revolted from the Calvinistic ''plan of salvation." 
William EUery Channing had done such work in 
Boston that Lyman Beecher left his parish in Eastern 
Massachussetts in 1823 to go to Boston to "con- 
front and stay the movement" ; and he shortly wrote 
in a letter that "all the literary men of Boston, the 



u 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 157 

professors of Harvard College, the judges on the 
bench are Unitarian." That was in 1823. The 
movement continued among the scholars and in- 
tellectuals until about 1836, when it reached the 
people and spread like contagion. Elias Hicks be- 
came the unorthodox leader of the Quakers, and 
Hosea Ballbu was with less intellectual difficulty 
attacking the Calvinistic dogma with the doctrine of 
Universalism. This last was the really popular re- 
action in New England. Unitarianism was scholarly, 
Universalism popular. But it all amounted to a re- 
volt against dogmatic theology. Channing denied 
the depravity of man to show ''how capable God 
had made him of righteousness." He was the center 
of a bitter fight, but to-day he looks calmly down 
from his pedestal in the Public Garden of Boston, 
and the average passer-by may wonder why he is 
there. Emerson taught that the revelations God 
made to man were made within the soul, that the 
soul had infinite dignity and capacity, that trans- 
cendentalism was an experience of the immanence 
of God. He also had his bitter fights with the col- 
lege men — all forgotten now in the universal rev- 
erence for his name. Margaret Fuller described 
the idea of transcendentalism as an exalting con- 
ception of the Godlike nature of the human spirit. 

Now it must be remembered that this liberalizing 
work had been going on in New England for fifty 
years. Its most prominent teachers were Channing, 
Emerson, and Theodore Parker. There was a 
danger in the work, looked at religiously, for 
whereas the scholars might be supposed to take care 



158 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of themselves philosophically, the breach made in 
religious customs for the common man left him 
nothing. In giving up creed and catechism he 
could scarcely be expected to come into ''living 
touch" with the philosophy of Germany. So the 
spectacle is presented of Puritan churches becoming 
Unitarian and Universalist, and presently a large 
percentage of the members of these, unable to feed 
on elevated ethical ideas, dropping off into Spirit- 
ualism. Yet Spiritualism, so bizarre and tempting, 
did not generally satisfy the religious need of the 
descendants of the Puritans. They had been used 
to the teachings of stern duty, and it was in their 
nature to show themselves capable of spiritual 
effort. Though often of but ordinary intelligence, 
the artisans and craftsmen and agriculturalists of 
that period had a deep capacity for religion. 

Hiram Crafts was such a man, a Yankee workman 
transcendentalized. He was not singular, but a 
type of the man who was to be reached by Christian 
Science in the first twenty-five years of its promul- 
gation. Out of the hunger of his heart for religion, 
he was drawn to a more intimate conversation with 
Mary Baker than he could gain at table, though he 
sat next her on the left hand and often lingered after 
supper for an hour of eager questioning and atten- 
tive listening. Nor was it singular that her first con- 
vert should be made in this way. This man had no 
intellectual antagonisms to overcome. He was 
simply hungry for spiritual experience, hungry to 
realize that personal communion with God that the 
religious movement of his times had led him to crave. 



i 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 159 

The hunger of this shoe-worker was such that Mary 
Baker saw she must provide mental food. 

She began to systematize her ideas and to write 
out a new manuscript, not entirely different from 
those she had prepared for Quimby. She still be- 
lieved Quimby had shared the truth of divine heal- 
ing with her, but her writings were now entirely 
based on her own experiences. These were written 
that Hiram Crafts might have something to study. 
The writings were exceedingly simplified, they were 
brief summaries, a primer of the simplest state- 
ments. Hiram Crafts in describing his pupilage 
years afterwards said: 

*'Mary Baker G. Eddy, the discoverer and 
founder of Christian Science, was not a Spiritualist 
when she taught me Christian Science in the year 
1866. At that time I was a Spiritualist, but her 
teachings changed my views on that subject and I 
gave up Spiritualism. She never taught me in my 
mental practise to hurt others, but only to heal the 
sick and reform the sinner. She taught me from 
the Scriptures and from manuscripts that she wrote 
as she taught me." 

In answer to a story intending to reflect discredit 
upon his teacher, a story which charged her with 
living upon this poor workman and his family with- 
out payment, he further said : 

''Mrs. Eddy boarded at my house when I resided 
in Stoughton, Massachusetts. She furnished our 
parlor and gave us the use of her furniture." 

But this statement, while it throws a little color 
on the picture, is not the one to bear in mind 



160 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

concerning her relation to this family. Hiram Crafts 
was Mrs. Eddy's first pupil. She taught him to 
return to his Bible, to seek in primitive Christianity 
the religion which he had lost through liberalism, 
and to become a mental practitioner to the sick and 
the sinning. In fact she gave him a profession by 
which he not only was able to live a religious life, 
but to earn his living. For a long period he did so 
earn his living and made some unusual cures. 

Crafts had gone to Lynn to work in the factories 
for the winter, but becoming absorbed with this 
topic of Mind-science, he decided to return to 
Stoughton to practise it. He invited Mrs. Patterson 
to go with him and his wife as he was not satisfied 
with what he had learned, and wanted further in- 
formation, instruction, and advice in practise. 

In leaving Lynn with these humble people, Maiy 
Baker took a radical step. She had tried for months 
to persuade those who were more akin to her in 
social and intellectual heritage to accept the truth 
she had to impart. Of these some, as the Phillips 
family, loved her, but were impervious to her doc- 
trine. The Winslows had begged her not to talk of 
it, the Unitarian clergyman of Lynn and his wife 
were friendly, but they feared for their faith when 
she spoke to them of God as Principle. The Ellises 
of Swampscott, mother and son, the latter a teacher, 
listened with grave interest and amiable social spirit 
to her arguments for a higher religion when she was 
a lodger at their house; but they were not moved 
to accept her tenets. Her doctrine seemed to have 
the effect of provoking discussion. It aroused in 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 161 

some minds resentment. In some homes where she 
had experienced agreeable friendships, she found it 
necessary to withdraw. In these few months of 
1866 this feeUng had augmented almost to 
persecution. 

Dr. E. J. Thompson, who was at the time, and 
long afterward practising dentistry in Lynn, told the 
author that he remembered talking to Mrs. Patter- 
son on several occasions about her ideas of religion. 

**I used to say to her," Dr. Thompson said, '''It 
may be all true, but I do not grasp it.' As long as 
Mrs. Patterson, afterwards Mrs. Eddy, lived in 
Lynn, she was known as an unusual woman holding 
peculiar religious views. Never have I heard any- 
thing more against her, and I used to see her every 
day for many years. It was said she held peculiar 
views at which many people laughed. But no one 
spoke against her otherwise." 

Yet it was her very life that they were against, 
these friends of hers ; for life meant nothing to her 
without religion. She could more easily give up 
society, culture, books, even church, than she could 
give up speaking of the understanding of God 
which had come to her. So she made the decision to 
go into what would have been for her at an earlier 
date a social Sahara. 

To the Crafts she took her personal belongings 
and house furnishings and helped to make their 
home more like what she was used to. Her efforts 
resulted in an attractive home, though one of great 
simplicity. It would have been impossible for her 
to do otherwise than make her environment at least 

11 



162 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

interesting. She lived there not entirely as a guest, 
for she had made an agreement with Mr. Crafts to 
guide and tutor him. She also diligently applied 
herself to writing. The whole problem of the 
science, of the textbook, and of the practical demon- 
stration might have been worked out here. The 
wandering of the next few years need not have oc- 
curred, but for those inherent traits deep in human 
nature which show themselves as jealousy, envy, 
and resentment. 

Perfectly natural as an exhibition of human na- 
ture was the gradual revelation of Mrs. Crafts' 
state of mind. She resented playing the role of 
Martha in this household. To her naturally fell the 
marketing and housework. Her tasks were not 
unusual or heavier than she could well assume, but 
the presence of a woman in her house who was not 
contributing dollars and cents directly into her palm 
was disconcerting to her sense of thrift. Moreover, 
the guest was a woman conspicuously her superior, 
one upon whom she must occasionally wait as a 
serving woman. This waiting and serving was hon- 
orable and necessary, and looked upon in a very 
democratic sense by the household. No one dreamed 
of making it a badge of shame to the wife, certainly 
not the husband who had been accustomed to see- 
ing his wife so occupied ; certainly not Mrs. Patter- 
son, who on occasion had performed the most 
menial tasks herself, as every New England girl is 
instructed to do when occasion requires. It had 
been imparted to Mary Baker as a part of the ethics 
of her breeding. 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 163 

However, the thoughts of serving a woman who 
held long conversations daily with her husband and 
otherwise occupied herself with writing aroused in 
Mrs. Crafts a jealousy which was only increased as 
the days drifted by and the life they all lived was 
shown to be without blame. There was no ground 
for reproach, but Mrs. Crafts found a fault ex- 
pressed in the statement, '*She carried herself above 
folks." Her jealousy may be regarded as natural 
by many, but it was certainly unfortunate in that it 
presently cut off the development of her husband's 
work, and broke the continuity of Mary Baker's. 

But Mary Baker was finding out an invaluable 
secret. She was learning to pursue her work un- 
mindful of petty disturbance. She seems to have 
mentally registered a vow, or engraved it upon her 
heart, **This one thing I do." She was searching 
the Scripture, keeping aloof from society, and de- 
voting time and energy to discovering a positive 
rule of healing. It must be remembered that she 
was finding the task ''sweet, calm, and buoyant with 
hope, not selfish nor depressing." She was winning 
her way to absolute conclusions through reason and 
demonstration. The revelation in her understand- 
ing was coming to her gradually. This was the test 
of experience. 

After a winter of such work as was thought neces- 
sary to prepare Hiram Crafts to practise mental 
healing, the family removed to the neighboring town 
of Taunton. East Stoughton, where they had passed 
the winter, is now called Avon and is sixteen miles 
directly South of Boston. Taunton is still further 



164 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

South, thirty-two miles distant from Boston. Mr. 
Crafts opened an office and advertised in the local 
papers his readiness to deal with various mentioned 
diseases. He declared, however, that if patients 
gave him a fair trial and were not benefited he would 
refund their money. In three weeks he was able to 
print the testimonial of a woman patient who had 
been healed of an internal abscess. The patient 
tells of her own and her friends' utter astonishment 
that this should have been done in an incredibly 
short time when she had suffered for twelve years 
and that it should have been done without medicines 
or applications, but she added that she was con- 
vinced that he was a skilful physician and that his 
cures were not the result of accident. 

Such indorsement coming from one living in his 
own town, whose name and address were printed 
in full and could be easily seen by the villagers and 
country folk, had a good effect in swelling the number 
of his visitors, and Hiram Crafts found himself in 
the way of doing a great deal of good, while his liveli- 
hood, which his wife had feared would be threatened 
by the abandonment of cobbling, seemed secured. 
She made it a source of complaint, however, that 
Mrs. Patterson did not herself practise. 

Mrs. Patterson encouraged, advised, and sup- 
ported her student in all he did. During the even- 
ings she discussed the principle of healing with him. 
Every cure that he made, however simple, was a 
further demonstration of the science. She was as 
deeply interested and as greatly rejoiced over each 
cure as was the practitioner. It was a season of 



i 



THE TEST OF EXPERIENCE 165 

wonder and delight to both teacher and student, 
and also at times to the faithful Martha of their 
household. But doubting relatives filled Mrs. 
Crafts with dissatisfaction and suspicion. To make 
shoes was a tangible, legitimate method of earning 
a living. To practise religious healing was, in their 
estimation, a pious fraud. 

Conversations of this nature with her relatives had 
its effect in due time. It brought about strained rela- 
tions in the household and made a new adjustment 
of conditions necessary. But fortunately before 
this took place a certain work had been accom- 
plished which could not be undone. Mary Baker 
saw that not only could she herself heal, but she 
could impart the understanding of the modus 
operandi to another. In this respect her work al- 
ready differed from Phineas Quimby's; she could 
detach it from herself, separate it from her person- 
ality. What remained was to give the philosophy 
its scientific statement. 



CHAPTER XII 

GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 

THERE is no period in the life of Mary Baker so 
difficult to delineate as the one before us. Its 
outward aspect might be rapidly sketched, the inci- 
dents of the next few years might be related com- 
prehensively in a few pages, but the significance of 
these years, which is of vast importance, can only 
be indicated with the most reverent suggestion. 

Whether outlining with bold pencil strokes or 
working up the picture from the canvas of environ- 
ment with subtlest brush touches, how can one hope 
to convey the idea of a life such as this, gathered out 
of its past, confirmed for its great future, girded with 
purpose and panoplied for resistance? Luminosity 
is attained only by the greatest skill in portraiture, 
and by what perspicuous, lucid, sane observations of 
sympathy and understanding only the masters can 
tell. But even such portraiture meets with success 
only when the eye to which it is submitted will atten- 
tively comprehend. Discernment of transmutation 
in character must accompany the enlightenment of 
events. 

Mary Baker was not ready to state the science of 
Mind-healing directly after her discovery through 
her own personal healing. She was not ready after 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 167 

she had healed others by this discovery ; nor was she 
ready when she had fitted her first student to heal 
disease. How she was prepared for this work can- 
not be explained by the usual methods of the biog- 
rapher, by rehearsing the facts of her residence in 
various places, her associates, or her occupations. 
A process of germination and unfoldment took place 
in her which must have had its apocryphal hou.rs as 
well as apocalyptic moments, its seasons of doubt 
and fog as its times of certainty and sun. The work 
laid upon her was that of renaming, actually re- 
christening, the verities. 

In her autobiography Mrs. Eddy has endeavored 
to explain how she approached this great work. He 
who runs may not read here. Loose conceptions 
arise from a careless use of terms, and, as in a trial 
where life depends on exact and technical phrasing, 
so in knowing the real Mary Baker Eddy one must 
apply himself to comprehend her terminology and 
how she came to adopt it in order to realize what 
business she was about. 

**I had learned that thought must be spiritualized, 
in order to apprehend Spirit," she has written. ''It 
must become honest, unselfish, and pure, in order to 
have the least understanding of God in Divine 
Science. The first must become last. Our reliance 
upon material things must be transferred to a per- 
ception of and dependence on spiritual things. For 
Spirit to be supreme in demonstration, it must be 
supreme in our affections, and we must be clad with 
divine power. Purity, self-renunciation, faith, and 
understanding must reduce all things real to their 



168 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

own mental denomination, Mind, which divides, 
subdivides, increases, diminishes, constitutes, and 
sustains, according to the law of God." ^ 

Thus in her own words we have the secret of 
her submission to adverse circumstances and con- 
ditions with a marvelous cheerfulness. It was 
submission to the spiritual sense of things, docility 
to the tutelage of divine inspiration. She further 
says: 

I had learned that Mind reconstructed the body, 
and that nothing else could. How it was done, the 
spiritual Science of Mind must reveal. It was a 
mystery to me then, but I have since understood. 
All Science is a revelation. Its Principle is divine, 
not human, reaching higher than the stars of 
heaven. 

I have said that her task was to re-christen the 
verities. She says that she withdrew from society 
for about three years to ponder her mission, to search 
the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind that should 
take the things of God and show them to the creature 
and reveal the great curative Principle, — Deity .^ 
How did she set about this task ? She says : 

The Bible was my text-book. It answered my 
questions as to how I was healed; but the Scrip- 
tures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue. 
Their spiritual signification appeared; and I ap- 
prehended for the first time, in their spiritual 
meaning, Jesus' teaching and demonstration, and 
the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and Meta- 
physical Healing, — in a word. Christian Science.^ 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 44. 
2 Tbid., p. 45. 2 Ibid., p. 39. 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 169 

In a brief paragraph is related the actual, tech- 
nical work of reducing her discovery *'to the 
apprehension of the age" in a new terminology, 
the foundation upon which all her subsequent 
work was built, the naming of the fundamental 
conceptions. She says of this earliest work in the 
stating of her Science: 

I named it Christian, because it is compas- 
sionate, helpful, and spiritual. God I called Im- 
mortal Mind. That which sins, suffers, and dies 
I named mortal mind. The physical senses, or 
sensuous nature, I called error and shadow. Soul 
I denominated Substance, because Soul alone is 
truly substantial. God I characterized as indi- 
vidual entity, but His corporeality I denied. The 
Real I claimed as eternal; and its antipodes, or 
the temporal, I described as unreal. Spirit I called 
the reality; and matter, the unreality.^ 

This is the actual work of several years. How it 
was accomplished who shall say .^ Who can say 
when it first grew clear in Mary Baker's under- 
standing that "matter neither sees, hears, nor feels 
Spirit" and that the five physical senses testifying 
that God is a physical, personal Being like unto man 
are testifying falsely ? Was it while she was at the 
Crafts' humble cottage home in Taunton, or while 
with the turbulent Wentworth family ? Was it dur- 
ing the quiet hours spent with the motherly old 
woman in the great empty house on the banks of the 
Merrimac in Amesbury, or was it while leaving an 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 39. 



170 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

inhospitable roof in a deluge of rain late on an 
autumn night ? It is idle to inquire whether in calm 
or turbulence the spiritual facts grew clear. But 
both calm and turbulence were her lot, and sometime 
during these years of trial it became clear to her 
what her mission was and why it was that ceaseless 
toil and self-renunciation were laid upon her after 
years of physical suffering and the sundering of al- 
most every natural or human tie of affection. 

"It is often asked," Mrs. Eddy has written, "why 
Christian Science was revealed to me as one Intelli- 
gence analyzing, uncovering and annihilating the 
false testimony of the physical senses. Why was this 
conviction necessary to the right apprehension of 
the invincible and infinite energies of Truth and 
Love, as contrasted with the foibles and fables of 
finite mind and material existence. 

"The answer is plain. Saint Paul declared that 
the Law was the schoolmaster, to bring him to 
Christ. Even so was I led into the mazes of divine 
metaphysics through the gospel of suffering, the 
providence of God, and the cross of Christ. No one 
else can drain the cup which I have drunk to the 
dregs, as the discoverer and teacher of Christian 
Science ; neither can its inspiration be gained with- 
out tasting this cup." ^ 

Taking up the incidents which formed the set- 
ting of this work of germination and unfoldment, we 
find the last tie which bound her to family and home 
broken. Or to speak more exactly, we find her sub- 
mitting to the severing of the last tie, for Mrs. Eddy 

' "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 46. 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 171 

never broke one tie with her own hands, never was 
herself the cause of one separation from all those who 
went out of her life, never neglected a duty to a 
relative or friend, or failed to show grateful remem- 
brance for any service performed in her behalf. 

There had been backward looks, many and often, 
to those loved ones of her family. Sitting alone in 
the twilight of many a day, she had reflected long 
and sadly on the lights and shadows of the past, 
dreaming of her mother's love, dearer to her than 
her pen could relate. She wrote of that mother as 
she oftenest remembered her, bending over her and 
parting the curls to kiss her cheek. The dear love of 
sister and brother found a place in her poetry and 
the sterner affection, deep and tried, of her old 
father is often referred to. She had thought of her- 
self as a young bride, of the lights of her own home, 
the remembered glance of her husband's eye. Of 
all these memories that was most poignantly sweet 
which pictured 

"... a glad young face. 
Upturned to his mother in playfulness; 
And the unsealed fountains of grief and joy 
That gushed at birth of that beautiful boy." 

These verses called "I am Sitting Alone," were 
written in September, 1866, shortly after Dr. Patter- 
son's desertion and before she left Lynn with her 
first student. In the summer of 1867 her memories 
culminated in a passion of affection. She must see 
some of her family once more and look again upon 
the mountains around her old home, those hills to 



172 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

which she had Hfted her eyes when a schoolgirl, 
walking in the garden with her pastor; when a 
young bride leaving home; when a young mother 
with her babe in her arms ; and when coming back 
from a visit to her own mother's grave. 

Yes, Sanbornton Bridge or Tilton were dear to 
her. Her native soil and natal horizons drew her 
as they must always draw all that is human in the 
hearts of the least and the greatest. Perhaps her 
compelling impulse in visiting Tilton was to see her 
brother George who had returned from Baltimore 
and now resided there with his wife and child. He 
had become blind. This great sorrow rested upon 
him heavily, indeed so heavily that he shortly yielded 
to an illness and died. But a few months before his 
death she made this visit home. How sensible she 
was of his sorrow and affliction she revealed in cer- 
tain other verses in which she would have conveyed 
to her brother more than sympathy, the understand- 
ing of her own faith. But this conveyance of her 
faith was not possible; he could not accept it, 
though her stanzas with a depth of affection beg 
him to dispel the shadow and give back from his 
earnest eyes the image of the soul of Truth and 
Light. 

On the occasion of this home-going Mary visited 
her brother and her sisters Abigail and Martha. 
With Abigail she had her last talk. She was not 
able to reconcile her to her views any more than she 
was able to inspire her brother with her faith. There 
was much of homely criticism to be endured and 
passed over, much of that sort of reminding of the 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 173 

trivial which makes a prophet in his own land and in 
his own house unknown because the outward cir- 
cumstances loom big and the inner life is unguessed. 
So it was with Jesus when in Nazareth. "Is not this 
the carpenter's son?" they asked, and ''are not his 
brothers and sisters here with us ?" So ''He did not 
many mighty works there." In her sister Martha's 
home Mary Baker did, however, perform a signifi- 
cant healing. Martha, who it will be remembered, 
married Luther Pillsbury of Concord, was now in 
Tilton with her daughter Ellen, then a young woman 
of twenty-one. This daughter lay critically ill of 
an abscess. Mary Baker went to the sick chamber 
and sat with her niece for a while. The girl lay 
supinely inert and helpless in bed; she is said to 
have been exceedingly ill and to have had perfect 
quiet ordered. 

Shortly after her aunt's visit to her sick chamber, 
they appeared together in the family living room. 
The young woman was dressed and expressed a de- 
sire to eat supper with the family. Every member 
of the household protested at once on seeing her. 
They were seriously alarmed. But Ellen, obeying 
her aunt, refused to return to her bed and suffered 
no ill effects. Ellen Pillsbury recovered completely, 
and within a few days returned to Taunton with her 
aunt Mary, a distance of a hundred miles. The 
story of this healing was told the author by Martha 
Rand Baker, widow^ of George Baker, who lived long 
in Tilton. 

It is rather singular that such an incident as this 
should have had no convincing eflfect on Mary 



174 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Baker's family. As a matter of fact it only the more 
alienated them from Mary and her religion. Even 
Ellen Pillsbury came in after years to repudiate the 
healing, and repudiate it with resentment. 

During the visit with her to Taunton this niece 
was detached in her affections from her aunt. Ellen 
was amazed at the simplicity and humbleness in 
which she found her Aunt Mary living at the home 
of the Crafts, was amazed at the social isolation, the 
rigorous application to a severe regimen of work 
which her aunt had imposed upon herself. More- 
over, she resented a firm guidance which her aunt 
directed over her. All would have been made 
simple, beautiful, and acceptable had Ellen been able 
to imbibe the tenets of the faith which had healed 
her. But these she rejected. She returned to Tilton 
and ever after scoffed at the very mention of Chris- 
tian Science. It was she who prevented her aunt 
Abigail in her last sickness from sending for Mary. 
She would turn pale with resentment when reminded 
that she had herself been lifted from a critical illness 
by her aunt. Her antipathy amounted to a passion, 
and was related with wonder by old neighbors. It is 
but another instance of many remarkable antagon- 
isms which Christian Science healing has given rise 
to through its very unanswerableness. Ellen Pills- 
bury appeared to resent the notion that she was 
made to be a living witness of its power. She acted 
as the final disintegrating factor in Mary Baker's 
home relations. 

Shortly after Ellen Pillsbury returned to Tilton, 
Mary Baker severed her relations with the Crafts, 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 175 

finding that no further good could be done along the 
Hues of procedure she had marked out with them. 
Mrs. Crafts was a confirmed SpirituaHst, and after a 
very temporary lull in her resistance to Christian 
Science she renewed her opposition with all the 
energy of a narrow mind and found countless ways 
of expressing her resistance. Mary Baker went to 
Lynn for a short visit with the Winslows. She ex- 
plained to them her desire for a quiet home in which 
she could write and work out her great problem. 
They suggested that she go to Amesbury and their 
reasons were clear. They were Quakers. In Ames- 
bury, a quiet little town in the extreme Northeast 
corner of Massachusetts, situated on the Merrimac 
River, nine miles from the sea, dwelt the great 
Quaker poet, Whittier. It was natural for them to 
suggest this as an admirable place for literary seclu- 
sion. It was a quiet, peaceful village with historic 
tradition. The Winslows had friends there to whom 
they commended Mrs. Glover, as she was now called 
by her own request. 

But to the Quakers she did not go. It will be re- 
membered that the Winslows were disquietly affected 
by her ideas, even after being convinced of their 
healing power. They had told her if she persisted 
in presenting such doctrine she would be thought 
insane. This was also the opinion of a Unitarian 
clergyman and his wife. It was not in Mary Baker's 
heart to arouse such opposition further or to care- 
lessly enter another environment of resistance. She 
now turned her footsteps to the home of an elderly 
SpirituaHst wom^n of whom she had heard much. 



176 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Mrs. Eddy has told the author that her frequent re- 
movals during this period from one residence to 
another was due to the revolutionary character of 
her teaching. She found that Spiritualists revealed 
a greater willingness than others to receive truth, 
and she wanted to teach; she was ready to teach 
whomsoever would accept her doctrine. It was to 
the simple-minded that she was constrained to ad- 
dress herself and to the simplest society. How these 
uneducated and simple folk were variously wrought 
upon to receive and reject her compels the narration 
of many painful episodes. Of these Mary Baker 
was not unduly mindful. Mrs. Eddy has but re- 
cently pointed out to the author that the assaults of 
the trivial-minded counted for but little in compari- 
son with the kind words of the nobly serious who, 
differing from her in belief, differed according to their 
honor and nobility. Of these Bronson Alcott was 
one who came to her in her darkest hour with the 
words, ''I have come to comfort you." 

It was at the home of Mrs. Nathaniel Webster that 
Mrs. Glover applied for board. Mrs. Webster lived 
alone in a three-story house of some fifteen rooms at 
the foot of Merrimac street near the river. Her hus- 
band, a retired sea-captain, was at that time a super- 
intendent of cotton mills in Manchester, and was 
away from home except for an occasional Sunday's 
visit. With open heart and open arms Mrs. W^eb- 
ster received the religionist. She had a sympathetic 
and hospitable nature, and moreover an inquiring 
mind. She was agreeably impressed when Mary 
Baker told her that she was engaged on a very 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 177 

serious work and that her work required reflection 
and solitude. She explained to her that she was 
writing, but did not further enter upon a discussion 
of her ideas at the time. They came to an agree- 
ment for modest terms and Mrs. Webster gave her 
a large chamber at the Southeast corner on the 
second floor. Here she had sunlight and a view 
of the river. 

The winter and part of the following summer were 
spent very quietly. These two women were placidly 
content together. If '* Mother" Webster was in- 
clined to discuss Spiritualistic ''phenomena" this 
was not a new experience for Mary Baker. She had 
listened to these ideas before and in many instances 
had shown rare toleration, even as she did in this 
case. In some of their conversations Mrs. Glover 
endeavored to lead Mrs. Webster into an under- 
standing of the Science of Mind. But the elderly 
woman showed but little comprehension. She so 
far failed to understand her as to think that Mrs. 
Glover was writing a revision of the Bible. Mrs. 
Webster had numerous guests of her own faith; 
many invalids came to her for a resting-place. 
With these Mrs. Glover sometimes mingled and per- 
formed not a few cures. These simple people came 
to speak of her with awe and reverence, and the 
rumor went abroad that a woman was living at Mrs. 
Webster's who could perform miracles. When 
walking along the river banks on pleasant summer 
evenings with Mother Webster, Mrs. Glover at- 
tracted the villagers' attention. Young people loi- 
tering on the bridge would gaze at her curiously, half 

12 



178 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

expecting to see Mrs. Glover walk upon the water of 
the river. Such incidents made this sojourn in 
Amesbury a mingled experience. Seeking absolute 
retirement, she was forced to endure a somewhat 
unpleasant notoriety through the volubleness of the 
kindly old soul with whom she made her home. 

What she was writing at this time was comments 
on the Scriptures, setting forth their spiritual inter- 
pretation, the Science of the Bible, and laying the 
foundation of her future book. Of these writings 
she has said: 

If these notes and comments, which have never 
been read by any one but myself, were published, 
they would show that after my discovery of the ab- 
solute Science of Mind-healing, like all great truths, 
this spiritual Science developed itself to me until 
** Science and Health" was written. These early 
comments are valuable to me as waymarks of 
progress, which I would not have effaced.^ 

This quiet work and spiritual unfoldment came to 
an abrupt halt in this home through the return to 
the house of a son of her hostess. In sardonic rem- 
iniscence the son has related that in spite of his 
mother's protests he dragged Mrs. Glover's trunk 
out upon the front veranda, ejected her into the 
night and storm, and locked the door upon her. He 
has explained that he wished to clear his mother's 
house of strangers that his vacation might be agree- 
able. This is a startling account of a ruffianly act 
which almost any man would hesitate to tell of him- 

^ "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 42. 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 179 

self, and it gives rise to the question as to what really 
happened there that so unmannerly a deed should 
be unblushingly proclaimed. 

As a matter of fact the incident did not occur as 
related by descendants of the family. There was 
cause for much offense, but the cause decidedly lay 
not with Mrs. Glover. She left the house of her own 
volition, left it with the same composure that she had 
first entered it. And her leaving was justifiable. A 
lady who was a guest of the house at the time accom- 
panied her and together they went to the home of 
Miss Sarah Bagley. Here arrangements were made 
for Mrs. Glover's entertainment for the time being, 
as she expected shortly to return to Stoughton. 

Miss Bagley's home, while simple and modest, 
was nevertheless a home of refinement, a place ad- 
mirably adapted for a quiet and studious life, and 
some months later Mrs. Glover returned and passed 
a winter with her. The house was an old homestead 
built by Squire Lowell Bagley. It stood for a cen- 
tury, just below the hill clothed with cedar and 
pine on which the poet Whittier lies buried after 
hving for fifty years in the quiet old town. Across 
the way and a little further up the street was the 
home of Valentine Bagley, who had been a sea- 
captain. Once in his wanderings he had been a cast- 
away in Arabia. Suffering tortures of thirst in the 
desert, he resolved, if he reached home, to dig a well 
by the wayside, that no passer-by should ever want 
for water. This well was dug and Whittier, hearing 
the story, wrote his poem on the *' Captain's Well." 
Indeed, the town was full of the legends of the past 



180 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

which Whittier immortalized, of witches sent to 
Salem to be tried and put to death, of Friends de- 
ported or hounded across the boundaries. Historic 
old mansions built in the seventeenth century still 
stood upon the street. 

When Squire Bagley died the townspeople were 
much surprised that he had not left a fortune to his 
daughters. He had led a retired life for a number of 
years and given his daughters a good education. 
Miss Sarah Bagley, however, found it necessary, 
when her father's affairs were settled, to teach school 
for an income, and Whittier was one of her first 
committee-men. With him she had very pleasant 
associations. She taught for several terms and then 
remained at home to be with her sister who was not 
strong. They opened a small-wares shop in their 
home which stood so close to the street as to make it 
convenient. But in spite of these occupations which 
Miss Bagley found it necessary to take upon herself, 
and though she did some sewing in connection with 
tending her shop, it is an injustice to her memory 
to speak of her as the village dressmaker or school- 
teacher with a show of condescension. She was well 
read and cultivated, a friend of Whittier, and re- 
garded by him as a gifted woman. She was able to 
perform the service of bringing Mary Baker Eddy 
and John Greenleaf Whittier together in one or two 
significant though unrecorded meetings. 

When Mrs. Glover came into this home quietly 
and composedly on a stormy evening of the late 
summer of 1868, after the unpleasant episode at the 
Websters', she brought with her new life and new 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 181 

interests to the somewhat gray and saddened exist- 
ence of the maiden daughter of the old squire whose 
fortunes had faded. Miss Bagley had been a Uni- 
versaUst and had become a SpirituaUst in religious 
beHef, but she soon became interested in Mrs. 
Glover's doctrine. She was an agreeable compan- 
ion who needed only the living touch of sympathy 
and interest to waken her from the apathy into which 
her dreary round of duties had drawn her. Mrs. 
Glover taught her the elements of Christian Science, 
for it must be remembered that she had not yet 
definitively grasped this Science herself. 

After Mrs. Glover left her they corresponded for 
over two years, until Mrs. Glover returned again to 
live with her and teach her to heal. This event 
changed her whole subsequent life. She laid aside 
her needle and closed her shop, devoting herself to 
practising the healing art. She earned her living for 
twenty years as a practitioner and laid aside suffi- 
cient to keep her in comfort for the last ten years of 
her life during seven of which she was afflicted with 
semi-blindness. But Sarah Bagley was never a 
Christian Scientist. She did not follow her teacher 
out of the maze into the bright light of complete 
understanding. She refused, as did another stu- 
dent, to lay aside mesmerism and confused her 
practise with such doctrines. 

While living in Stoughton with the Crafts, Mrs. 
Glover met Mrs. Sally Went worth, who brought her 
daughter to her to be healed of consumption. Mrs. 
Wentworth invited Mrs. Glover to come and live 
with her, and wrote her while she was in Amesbury, 



182 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

repeating the request. Mrs. Glover now accepted 
the invitation, and was a member of the Wentworth 
household for about two years. This household was 
composed of father and mother, a son and daughter, 
and a married son who occasionally visited the house. 
The daughter, Lucy Wentworth, was a girl of four- 
teen ; the brother Charles, a little older, was a high 
school boy, and the oldest son Horace, was a jour- 
neyman shoemaker, of a happy-go-lucky disposition, 
much averse to religious discussions. 

In complying with Mrs. Wentworth's earnest 
appeal that she should make her home with them 
and teach her Mind-science, Mary Baker did not 
entirely realize the conditions she was to encounter. 
Mrs. Wentworth was a domestic-minded woman, 
not over gifted with intellectuality, but of a recep- 
tive and teachable nature. She had been a practical 
nurse and had gone out to the sick of the neighbor- 
hood for years. But she was a Spiritualist, and be- 
lieved in rubbing the limbs of her patients to give 
them comfort. She had eagerly drunk in all that 
Mary Baker had imparted to her of Mind-healing 
when .she met her at the Crafts', and thought she 
could combine this with her nursing and massage to 
make her a more practical healer. 

From the very start Mary Baker had to disabuse 
her mind of such a hope. She talked to her of the 
fallacy of such a procedure, often illustrating by her 
experience with Phineas Quimby. In just what 
way this doctrine of rubbing and clairvoyantly read- 
ing the patients' minds was inimicable to a cure 
in Mind-science Mary Baker did not herself at 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 183 

that time know. Hence she could not authorita- 
tively govern Mrs. Wentworth in her thinking. Mrs. 
Wentworth was inclined to the Quimby method and 
Mary Baker had not found herself sufficiently to 
gainsay her predilection. She told Mrs. Wentworth 
freely*(jill that she knew of Quimby's method, but she 
herself worked on her own ideas, writing for hours in 
her room, struggling with the conflicting theories. 

Mrs. Glover had with her a manuscript which she 
had prepared while at Portland under the sway of 
Quimby's thought. Mrs. Wentworth wanted to copy 
this. She found in it certain comfort for her Spiritu- 
alistic leanings. Mrs. Glover did not refuse it to 
her, but felt so uncertain of its character that she 
did not want her to circulate it and made her 
promise to keep it only for her own perusal. Not 
yet certain enough to absolutely condemn it, she 
gravely doubted the statements which she had herself 
penned at an earlier date while still under Quimby's 
influence. 

Now, as has been said, Mary Baker was engaged 
on a manuscript concerning the spiritual significance 
of the Scripture. On this she was devoting the 
closest thought, endeavoring to make clear the ap- 
prehensions of pure spiritual doctrine. Mrs. Went- 
worth, as Mrs. Webster had done, spoke of this as 
Mrs. Glover's Bible. So the family gossiped among 
themselves and came to speak of the manuscript 
Mary Baker loaned Mrs. Wentworth as the 
** Quimby" manuscript, and the one she was at work 
on as *'Mrs. Glover's Bible." Horace Wentworth, 
the shoemaker, visiting home, caught up these phras^3 



184 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

with the readiness of a jocular and jeering tempera- 
ment. He had an able second in all his jests and 
gibes in the person of a cousin, a gay-hearted, mirth- 
loving girl, given to mimicry. Between them they 
tormented the patient mother with a burlesque of 
her work. ■■:^- 

Mary Baker was never a witness of these hilarious 
scenes. She kept rather strict hours at her desk, 
varying her work with recreation of a suitable nature. 
She lived for nearly two years in this village sur- 
rounded with wooded hills. She knew well its quiet 
walks and inspiring vistas. In her room she wrote 
assiduously and spent many hours in meditation and 
prayer. Her relations with the two children living at 
home, as well as with the father and mother, were 
cordial and agreeable. Far from being a recluse, she 
welcomed the children to her room when not engaged 
with her writing, and made their joys and sorrows 
her own. The daughter Lucy was particularly de- 
voted to her. 

*'I loved her," Lucy Wentworth told the author, 
"because she made me love her. She was beautiful 
and had a good influence over me. I used to be with 
her every minute that she was not writing or other- 
wise engaged. And I was very jealous of her book. 
We talked and read together and took long walks 
in the country. I idolized her and really suffered 
when she locked her door to work and would not let 
me come to her. After she had worked for hours 
she always relaxed and threw off her seriousness. 
Then she would admit us, my brother Charles and 
me, and sometimes a school friend of Charles. The 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 185 

doys would romp in her room sometimes rather 
boisterously, but she never seemed to mind it. Our 
times together alone were quieter. When she finally 
left our house it seemed to me my heart would break. 

'*But a coolness grew up in the family toward our 
guest. I don't know how it came about. My 
father thought she absorbed my mother too much 
and that she was weaning me away from them. 
Perhaps she was unconsciously, for she made a 
great deal of me. Yet her influence over me was 
always for good. We read good books and talked 
of spiritual things. She loved nature; she was cul- 
tivated and well-bred. Her manners seemed to me 
so beautiful that I imitated her in everything. I 
never missed any one as I missed her. She said 
good-by to me with great affection, held me in her 
arms and looked long into my eyes. 'You, too, 
will turn against me some day, Lucy,' she said. 
And if I have seemed to, did I not have reason ? 
Why did she never write to me ? I have never heard 
from her, not one word since she left our house 
thirty-five years ago." 

It w^as not in Mary Baker's nature to wean a child 
from its parents. She had had her own heart-break- 
ing experience of this herself. Her experiences with 
the Wentworths, following upon her experiences 
with the Crafts, taught her to avoid in the future a 
too close mingling with another family. And her 
conclusions were based on just analysis of human 
nature. Richard Kennedy of Boston, an early stu- 
dent with Mrs. Eddy, in commenting upon her re- 
lations with this family, made these observations to 



186 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the author in explaining the situation there and 
elsewhere when Mrs. Eddy was working out her 
religious statement: 

The Wentworths were well enough in their 
way, as were the Crafts with whom Mrs. Eddy lived 
at an earlier period, and the Websters of Amesbury. 
It was an unfortunate fact that Mrs. Eddy with 
her small income was obliged to live with people 
very often at this time in her life who were with- 
out education and cultivation. It was never her 
custom to keep apart from the family. She in- 
variably mingled with them and through them kept 
in touch with the world. She had a great work to 
do ; she was possessed by her purpose and like Paul 
the apostle, and many another great teacher and 
leader, she reiterated to herself, *'This one thing I 
do." Of course simple-minded people who take 
life as it comes from day to day find any one with 
so fixed an object in life a rebuke to the flow of their 
own animal spirits. Mrs. Wentworth was what 
old-fashioned New Englanders call ** clever," that 
is to say, kind-hearted. She looked w^ell after the 
creature comforts of those under her roof. Lucy 
was a spirituelle young girl, Charles was a sensible, 
lively boy, but Horace was something of a scoffer, 
without any leanings toward religious inquiry. 

Horace Wentworth, the scoffer, in later years did 
more than scoff at the memory of his mother's 
guest. He even made allegations of a grave nature 
against Mary Baker Eddy. He related that in 
leaving his father's house Mrs. Glover mahciously 
slashed the matting and tried to set the house afire 
by putting live coals on a pile of papers. He gos- 
siped after this manner for many years, and finding 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 187 

that his stories went well in the village square, he 
eventually told them to newspaper correspondents 
and saw them printed in the metropolitan press. 
The apparent foundation for such slanderous gossip 
is that the children playing roughly in Mrs. Glover's 
room tore the matting with their heavy shoes, and 
some dead ashes were laid on a newspaper to be 
removed with the rubbish. There was no thought 
of serious unpleasantness when Mrs. Glover left his 
father's home, nor dared this son speak against his 
mother's teacher so long as his mother lived. 

But the scoffings of the son and the mimicry and 
mockery of his cousin Kate did create a discord in 
the home which came to wear on Mrs. Glover's 
mind. She frequently overheard the wordy and 
worldly clamor in the rooms down-stairs. She heard 
the harsh laughter and mincing mimicry; she 
heard the passionate defense made of her by the 
young daughter Lucy; she heard Mrs. Went- 
worth sharply reprimanding her eldest son with the 
words, '*If ever there was a saint on earth it is Mrs. 
Glover." She heard the father interfere with a 
tolerant plea for his boy. The house was too small 
for her to live in unmindful of these indiscreet 
wranglings. 

There seemed to be a hopeless division in the 
family over her, her personality, her teaching, her 
interpretation of the Bible. This division of opinion 
threatened to become a serious cause of difference 
in an otherwise united family. Mary Baker made 
up her mind one evening, after reading a letter from 
Miss Bagley, that she would return to the quiet home 



188 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of this cultivated maiden lady in Amesbury and go on 
with her work where she would be less disturbed and 
in no way the cause of discussion. 

But it was not Mary Baker's idea of good-breeding 
to break off long-established relations rudely or with 
recrimination. She recognized the limitations of 
this family ; she knew what she had to do and that 
she must be about it. She acquainted Mr. and Mrs. 
Wentworth with her intentions and her leave-taking 
was made with courteous attentions on both her part 
and theirs. She was escorted to the train by the 
elder Mr. Wentworth, who carried her bag and 
wraps. He found her a comfortable seat in the train 
and shook hands with her with expressions of re- 
gret at parting. This may not be as romantic an 
account as that of Horace Wentworth, who, from 
long embellishment of his reminiscences, came to 
say that his family had gone from home and that 
Mrs. Glover, after strewing a newspaper with smok- 
ing coals, fled clandestinely. However, the sober 
facts are that the leave-taking was quite devoid of 
adventure and as decorous as usual with well- 
behaved personages. 

Returning to Amesbury in the fall of 1870, Mary 
Baker spont the winter completing certain manu- 
scripts and teaching two students. These students 
were Sarah Bagley and Richard Kennedy. Ken- 
nedy was a young man a little past his majority, who 
boarded at the Captain Webster house where Mrs. 
Glover had previously lived. He had a small box 
factory in the town, employing a few hands and 
earning for himself a good living. 



GERMINATION AND UNFOLDMENT 189 

He was alert, active and clear-headed, and Mrs. 
Glover was persuaded by Miss Bagley to accept him 
with her as a student. The winter evenings were 
passed in conversation on metaphysics. The £o- 
cratic method of teaching was necessarily adopted 
by Mrs. Glover, as she had as yet no text-book. 
These early talks were later systematized, the dis- 
sertations were dignified into the form of lectures. 
And these lectures some of her early students 
declare to have been illuminating and inspirational 
beyond valuing in money. 

Her dissertations as well as her writings were be- 
ginning to unseal the fountains of her inspiration. 
She had arrived by this winter's work at a clear 
standpoint. She could now definitely wrap in words 
the spiritual concepts which had before been elu- 
sive and intangible. She was beginning to lay hold 
of the technical processes of her work. From 
this standpoint she lifted her eyes to a far horizon. 
The work now opened up before her, the work of 
promulgation. 

By the spring of 1870 she had completed a manu- 
script which she entitled "The Science of Man." 
This manuscript was copyrighted but not published 
until some time later. "I did not venture upon its 
publication until later," she says, "having learned 
that the merits of Christian Science must be proven 
before a work on this subject could be profitably 
published." ' 

It was first issued as a pamphlet and is advertised 
in the first number of the Christian Science Journal. 
It was later converted into the chapter Recapitula- 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 53. 



190 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

tion, embraced in later editions of "Science and 
Health." It contains the fundamental principles of 
Christian Science and its simplest comprehensive 
tenet, the scientific statement of being. With this 
manuscript completed she knew that she could 
teach the science and extend her work, that the time 
was ripe for harvest. 

Through four successive years she had labored 
carefully, patiently, earnestly, writing and rewriting, 
while the truth grew in her understanding. It is no 
refutation of her sublime discovery in 1866 or of her 
divine guidance in preparing and presenting its 
principles that the work was a growth and did not 
spring full blown into her mind. Mary Baker Eddy 
could never have made her discovery in 1866 had 
she not been prepared for it by long application to 
spiritual inquiry. Nor would she have written 
"Science and Health" had she not labored long 
and with perfect submission to imperative spiritual 
guidance. The preparation for the discovery is 
shown by the fact of her childhood and young 
womanhood and, as this narrative reveals, her state- 
ment of long preparation is sustained by the fact of 
her life. She says : "From my very childhood I was 
impelled by a hunger and thirst after divine things, 
— a desire for something higher and better than 
matter — to seek diligently for the knowledge of 
God, as the one great and ever-present relief from 
human woe." ^ 

With regard to important dates in her memory 
concerning the portents of what was to be revealed 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 47. 



GERjSnNATION AND UNFOLDMENT 191 

to her she says: "As long ago as 1844 I was con- 
vinced that mortal mind produced all disease and 
that the various medical systems were in no sense 
scientific. In 1862, when I first visited Mr. Quimby, 
I was proclaiming to druggists, Spiritualists, and 
mesmerists that science must govern all healing." ^ 

Her life, her acts, her conversations all sustain 
this statement, though mortal mind belongs to the 
terminology of later years. Before meeting Quimby 
the conception of that which "sins, suffers, dies" 
was growing in her thought, though as a vague ap- 
prehension. TVTiile in Grot on she astounded the old 
man who visited her to pray with her by rising to 
meet him in no other strength than a faith groping 
blindly. In Rumney she healed the diseased eyes of 
a child instantaneously, and as a further proof that 
she was acquiring a more definite "hold of this great 
truth, she was herself healed by her own religiosity 
while under Quimby's magnetic treatment and in 
spite of his manipulations. No one should be con- 
fused by these facts concerning the definite discovery 
in 1866. Mrs. Eddy says: "The first spontaneous 
motion of Truth and Love, acting through Christian 
Science on my roused consciousness, banished at 
once and forever the fundamental error of faith in 
things material ; for this trust is the unseen sin, the 
unknown foe, — the heart's untamed desire, which 
breaketh the divine commandments." ^ 

If she was thus prepared for her discovery, indeed 
re-prepared through experiencing the workings of 

^ Christian Science Journal, 1887. 

' "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 48. 



192 THE LIFE OF IVIARY BAKER EDDY 

magnetism, that her healing might be clear and 
definite, then we may believe she was by the same 
gradual process prepared for the writing of her book. 
Again it is best to take her own words for a descrip- 
tion of the attuning of her faculties. She says : 

Naturally, my first jottings were but efforts to 
express in feeble diction Truth's ultimate. ... As 
sweet music ripples in one's first thoughts of it like 
the brooklet in its meandering midst pebbles and 
rocks, before the mind can duly express it to the ear, 
— so the harmony of Divine Science, first broke 
upon my sense, before gathering experience and 
confidence to articulate it. Its natural manifesta- 
tion is beautiful, and euphonious, but its written 
expression increases in power, and perfection, under 
the guidance of the great master.^ 

* " Retrospection and Introspection," p. 43. 



CHAPTER XIII 

MESMERISM DETHRONED 

WITH the coming of spring in the year 1870 
Mrs. Glover's thoughts were definitely shaped 
for the work before her. She had decided to return 
to the city of Lynn and take up the teaching of Divine 
Science. She had the manuscript, *'The Science of 
Man," for a basis. From a worldly standpoint her 
resources were meager. Her small income had been 
carefully husbanded, but she had in hand only a 
modest sum for capital with which to venture into a 
city and rent rooms. Her wardrobe too was scanty, 
carefully preserved though it had been. That she 
was invariably neat and attractive in appearance is 
in itself a statement suggestive of a miracle. That 
she had had shelter, food, and clothing for four years 
on an income of two hundred dollars per annum, and 
had nowhere incurred the charge of charitable enter- 
tainment, and that she had all that time worked as- 
siduously at her intellectual and spiritual problems is 
one of the mysteries of the possibilities of poverty, 
fully as beautiful in its revelation as the glory of 
opulence. 

Richard Kennedy, the young man who with Miss 
Bagley had received her instruction during the 
winter, had no mind to leave his teacher. He had 
become so imbued with enthusiasm for the Science 

13 



194 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

he had been studying that he wished to practise it, 
and he wished to begin his practise in the larger 
field of Lynn. He conceived the idea of accompany- 
ing his teacher and practising under her guidance. 
He talked it over with Mrs. Glover many times, 
joining her when she took her evening walk along 
the river at sunset, and eagerly setting forth his 
plans for mutual work. It was his desire to be under 
Mrs. Glover's supervision, taking the burden of 
practise entirely on his shoulders and leaving her 
free to teach and write. He also believed that he 
could relieve her of many business cares. He had 
some capital, and so sensible was he of the enlighten- 
ment he had received that he was quite ready to 
risk his savings and to agree to share equally with 
Mrs. Glover any income which he might derive 
from the practise of Mind Science. 

Mrs. Glover was not so ready to enter into this 
agreement with her young student. He had an un- 
blemished reputation, had honorably conducted 
himself toward her with the chivalrous devotion of a 
son to a mother; but he was untried in the ways 
of life, there had been no test put upon him such as 
she well knew lay before him if he took up the work 
with her. She knew the city of Lynn, its somewhat 
harsh industrialism, its free intermingling of the 
sexes in the factory life, and the nearby temptations 
of Boston — all very different from the village life 
of Amesbury. 

''Richard," she said to him, laying a hand upon 
his shoulder and looking searchingly into his frank, 
boyish face, ''this is a very spiritual life that Mind 



MESMERISM DETHRONED 195 

Science exacts, and the world offers many allur- 
ing temptations. You know but little of them as 
yet. If you follow me you must cross swords with 
the world. Are you spiritually-minded enough to 
take up my work and stand by it .?" 

Richard Kennedy thought he was. His eagerness 
and enthusiasm carried the day. Accordingly he 
accompanied Mrs. Glover to Lynn and they stopped 
at the home of Mrs. Oliver until they could make 
arrangements for offices and living rooms. Mr. 
Kennedy soon found a desirable apartment in a 
three-story building at the corner of South Common 
and Shepard streets, a little out of the business 
district and yet within easy walking distance of the 
main thoroughfares. This building remained for 
many years the humble witness of the earliest 
struggles toward a metaphysical college, the place 
where the rudiments of Mind-Science were first 
imparted in class. 

The house was then a gable-roofed frame struc- 
ture, surrounded by lawns and shade trees. The 
open space across the way was a large park, Lynn 
Common, lined with stately trees. The open view, 
good air, and commodious interior of the house 
made it an attractive place. Miss Susie Magoun had 
but recently leased the place for a private school 
for young girls, and she used the first floor for this 
purpose and the third floor for her own sleeping 
apartments. She was a good business woman, but 
quite young and somewhat nervous about her 
extensive financial obligations. When young 
Kennedy called on her one evening early in June, 
she was looking over the building and beginning 



196 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

to feel apprehensive about her second floor and 
what sort of tenants she would be likely to have 
there. The young misses who were to come there 
for grammar studies and the accomplishments of 
music, painting, and dancing were the daughters 
of the wealthier families of Lynn. It was necessary 
that her tenants should be desirable persons. 

Accordingly Miss Susie Magoun was pleased 
when Richard Kennedy explained that he was a 
physician who would practise mental healing and 
that he was in partnership with a lady who taught 
moral science and was writing a book on her system. 
She thought it prudent, however, to reserve her 
decision until she saw the lady, who might be a 
Spiritualist and the mental healing resolve itself 
into trances and seances. All this doubt was swept 
away in her meeting with Mrs. Glover, to whom she 
straightway put those doubts into questions. Mrs. 
Glover unreservedly told her the facts, stating that 
she did not hold to any such views or practises. Her 
quiet, well-bred manner reassured the little school- 
mistress, who forthwith let her second floor of five 
rooms to Mrs. Glover and Mr. Kennedy for oflfices 
and sleeping rooms. She presently found her 
tenants so agreeable that she persuaded an old 
friend to come to live with her and open a dining- 
room for them all in the house. Thereafter the 
family took their meals together. 

Of Mrs. Glover'is religious views the school- 
mistress remained unenlightened beyond these first 
explanations and the fact that she attended church 
regularly. Indeed they rented a pew together at the 



MESMERISM DETHRONED 197 

Unitarian church a few doors away on South 
Common street. The Rev. Samuel B. Stewart was 
the clergyman at the time. \Miy Miss Magoun 
should have withheld herself from a knowledge of 
Mrs. Glover's teaching is a matter of relatively 
small importance, yet it has some relation to the 
events of the succeeding months. She was young, 
social, and of a lively disposition. To her Mrs. 
Glover seemed somber, serious, austere. On the 
contrary, the young doctor, as Kennedy was now 
called, entered more into her plans. He took part 
in some of her social affairs. They met upon the 
same plane. It w^as he who paid the rent ; it was he 
who would perform an errand for her in the city ; it 
was he who exchanged the gossip of the hour with 
her. Indeed Richard Kennedy was little more in- 
clined than was their hostess to accept the austerities 
of Christian Science. 

The rooms which Mrs. Glover had taken were 
fitted up very plainly, for she had well learned the 
severe lesson of plain living and high thinking. She 
formed her first class in Mind Science shortly after 
they were settled. Her first pupils came from the 
shoe shops. Patients came in response to the 
modest sign which was put up outside the door. 
Mrs. Glover advised and instructed her associate in 
giving treatment. Meanwhile she continued her 
writing in her own rooms. The treatment inter- 
ested the more speculative of the patients and they 
sought Mrs. Glover to talk with her and learn of 
this new Science. Thus the first students were 
gathered around her. 



198 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

It is not possible to draw a picture of those first 
classes in Mind Science that will appeal to a sense of 
the beautiful. The students who were drawn to- 
gether were workers; their hands were stained 
with the leather and tools of the day's occupation; 
their narrow lives had been cramped mentally 
and physically. Their thoughts were often no more 
elevated than their bodies were beautiful. They 
could not come to Mrs. Glover in the daytime, for 
their days were full of toil. At night, then, these 
first classes met, and it was in the heat of July and 
August. In the barely furnished upper chamber a 
lamp was burning which added somewhat to the 
heat and threw weird shadows over the faces 
gathered round a plain deal table. Insects buzzed 
at the windows, and from the common over the way 
the hum of the careless and free, loosed from the 
shops into the park, invaded the quiet of the room. 
Yet that quiet was permeated by the voice of a 
teacher at whose words the hearts of those workmen 
burned within them. "The Hght which never was 
on land or sea" was made to shine there in that 
humble upper chamber. 

I have said this picture was not beautiful, yet it 
appeals to the deepest and highest sense of beauty, 
that sense through which the heart receives impres- 
sion. Mary Baker laid her finger upon the central 
motive of life those summer evenings on Lynn 
Common, and the response was a realization of 
divine consciousness which reached throughout the 
world, not immediately, but gradually, persistently 
as the years passed. And that moment of exquisite 



MESMERISM DETHRONED 199 

tenderness, evoked in the humble upper chamber, 
seems destined to swell into an eon, where time 
melts into eternity; for it was in such a moment 
that the understanding of divine consciousness was 
imparted. God is no respecter of persons, St. Peter 
discovered. He had seen the despised Nazarene 
impart this consciousness to the fishermen on the 
shores of Galilee. The shoe-worker from his dingy- 
bench, his foul-smelling glues and leathers, the whirr 
and clangor of machinery, saw the walls of his 
limitation melt, and experienced the inrush of being 
where the lilies of annunciation spring. 

To these students Mary Baker was not somber, 
austere, or formidable. She was invariably in- 
terested and interesting, possessing a sympathy 
which went deep down to the heart of things. She 
rebuked sin and sickness alike and there was an 
invariableness about her queries and her eyes which 
searched their lives. Some could not endure such 
testing and fell away; others stood fast and ex- 
perienced amazing results in their lives. There 
were healings of consumption, of tumor, of dropsy, 
and other extreme cases of disease made by these 
students, and such results were so amazing to the 
students that some of them were confounded by 
their very success. 

One of her first students was George Tuttle, the 
brother of a woman whom Richard Kennedy, 
directed by Mrs. Glover, had healed of tuberculosis 
in an advanced stage. George Tuttle was a stalwart 
young seaman who had just returned from a cruise 
to Calcutta. It is said that he was asked what he 



200 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

thought he would get out of Mrs. Glover's class m 
metaphysics. He replied that he didn't think about 
it at all, that he joined because his sister asked him 
to. When he actually cured a girl of dropsy as a 
result of his first grappling with Mind Science, he 
was so surprised and frightened that he washed his 
hands of it forever. 

It was not by overstating what Mrs. Glover had 
taught them, but by misstating her teaching, through 
misapprehension or through wilful distortion, that 
some of these earlier students became ineffectual and 
subsequently, through chagrin, were entirely es- 
tranged from the cause which they had at first so 
ardently espoused. One of the rebellious students 
was Charles S. Stanley, brother-in-law of the seaman 
Tuttle. He was a shoe- worker and a Baptist. The 
healing of his wife had led him to seek admittance to 
the class Mrs. Glover was conducting. After some 
questioning she admitted him, only to find him 
argumentative, controversial, determined to discuss 
dogma from the standpoint of a Baptist rather than 
a Christian. In the class were men and women, 
mostly shoe- workers. These students had various 
religious creeds ; there were Methodists, Unitarians, 
Universalists, and others. The controversial Baptist 
affected the harmony of a class where other members 
had risen above creed into the consideration of pure 
Christianity. His arguments recurred from day to 
day until Stanley broke away from Mrs. Glover's 
teaching without completing her course of in- 
struction. Indeed she dismissed him for lack of 
teachableness, though he insisted he knew all there 



MESMERISM DETHRONED 201 

was of Mind Science. He practised without her 
sanction and with indifferent success for a time and 
later became a homeopathic physician. 

Wallace W. Wright, a bank accountant, came to 
grief in his practise of Mind Science. He was the son 
of a Universalist clergyman of Lynn, and a brother 
of Carroll D. Wright, who afterward became United 
States Commissioner of Labor. His relations with 
Mrs. Glover were interesting because the rock upon 
which he struck was not superstition, as in the case 
of Tuttle, or dogma, as in the case of Stanley, but 
psychology. He precipitated a discussion which 
finally led Mrs. Glover to draw the line sharply 
between mesmerism and Mind Science, to indicate 
once and for all what Quimbyism was, what mes- 
merism is, and to rid her practising students of the 
custom of laying hands upon their patients. 

Wright had entered her class with some intellectual 
perturbation but left it with enthusiasm. When he 
had completed the course he began to practise in 
Lynn and later he carried his work elsewhere with 
success, which continued so long as he was an 
obedient follower. But he began to alter in his 
mental attitude and to question the spirituality of 
what he was doing. He began to believe he was 
practising mesmerism. Thereupon his power to 
cure began to wane, until he lost it utterly. He 
wrote of his peculiar experience to a Lynn paper 
which published his letter. He said : 

The 9th of last June found me in Knoxville, 
Tennessee, as assistant to a former student. We 
met with good success in a majority of our cases 



202 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

but some of them utterly refused to yield to the 
treatment. Soon after settling in Knoxville I be- 
gan to question the propriety of calling this treat- 
ment "Moral Science" instead of mesmerism. 
Away from the influence of argument which the 
teacher of this so-called science knows how to 
bring to bear upon students with such force as to 
outweigh any attempts they may make at the time 
to oppose it, I commenced to think more inde- 
pendently, and to argue with myself as to the truth 
of the positions we were called upon to take. The 
result of this course was to convince me that I had 
studied the science of mesmerism.^ 

Thus was summed up in a phrase the evil which 
had stalked like a shadow in the wake of Mary 
Baker's religious investigation of years. The science 
of mesmerism, following upon the heels of Divine 
Science, was dogging and menacing it, threatening 
to worry and tear to pieces the good that was done. 
It explained in a word all her long struggle with 
Quimbyism; it explained the dereliction of those 
who had been earnest for a time and the inter- 
ference of her students' relations which had ex- 
hibited peculiarly baleful effects on her teaching. 
The full significance of hypnotism and mental sug- 
gestion did not come to her at once, though with 
that student's explanation of his failure a vague 
outline of the workings of animal magnetism ap- 
peared. 

The result of this letter was soon evident in Mrs. 
Glover's life and affairs. It was not that Wright 
had abandoned the cause. Wright was bound 
to go by his very nature ; intellectual self-sufficiency 

* Lynn Transcript, January 13, 1872. 



MESMERISM DETHRONED . 203 

and scholarly pride were certain to claim him. He 
had a brief controversy with five of Mrs. Glover's 
students through the medium of the Lynn papers in 
which he called upon Mrs. Glover to walk on the 
water, raise the dead, and live without air and 
nourishment. Then retiring from the controversy, 
he exultantly declared that Mrs. Glover and her 
science were dead and buried. 

Mrs. Glover minded this no more than if, as she 
said to a woman student, he should declare he could 
dip the Atlantic dry. Such harassing of herself and 
w^ork she had learned to expect and knew that it was 
not vital. As for Tuttle, the superstitious, who 
dropped Mind Science because it worked results 
which frightened him, he was not worthy of more 
than a passing smile ; and Stanley, whose grievance 
was a most confused demand for a personal God, 
anatomy, and manuscripts, exhibiting a virulent 
case of acquisitiveness together with the fear that 
he was being duped, was annoying but negligible. 
It was no one of these three students who seriously 
affected Mrs. Glover's work. 

The test of Mind Science came actually and 
vitally in the mental attitude of Kennedy. She had 
accepted him as a co-worker with some hesitation. 
He was in the relation to her of a chosen disciple. 
To him she had expounded more deeply and 
intimately the physically inscrutable and intangible 
apprehensions of truth than to any other student. 
When this vision of the w^orking of mesmerism came 
to her so clearly in January of 1872, she would 
have defined it to him. But when she came to do so. 



204 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

she beheld Kennedy remove himself from her tute- 
lage. He was blind, deaf, and immovable. He was 
incapable of perceiving what she would have pointed 
out to him, and revealed himself as never having 
comprehended the nature of Mind Science and to 
be actually working with the processes of mesmerism 
and the hypnotic action of mental suggestion. 

That Kennedy actually could not or would not 
understand that a line of cleavage separated Mind 
Science from mesmerism Mary Baker now realized. 
She realized it with sorrow, because of himself and 
because he had practised in her name. She had 
taught him principle, but had permitted him to 
make use of the method of laying his hands upon 
his patients. So she had permitted Hiram Crafts, 
Mrs. Wentworth, and Miss Bagley. The results 
now shown were personal, magnetic, confusing. In 
Kennedy's case, it now appeared, he had surrounded 
himself with a bevy of patients who were not seek- 
ing truth but Kennedy. Through such methods and 
practises the pure doctrine of divine healing was 
liable to become a byword. 

Some years later a suit was brought in her name, 
though without her consent, against Tuttle and 
Stanley for the object of collecting unpaid tuition. 
At the trial all three of these students, Tuttle, 
Stanley, and Kennedy, exhibited unreservedly their 
utter lack of comprehension of the first postulate of 
Mind Science. But Kennedy in particular, out of 
his own mouth, proved himself incapable of grasping 
it. In his testimony, which was preserved in the 
notes of the presiding judge, he said : 



MESMERISM DETHRONED 205 

I went to Lynn to practise with Mrs. Eddy. 
Our partnership was only in the practise, not in 
teaching. I practised heaUng the sick by physical 
manipulation. This mode was operating upon 
the head, giving vigorous rubbing. This was a 
part of her system that I had learned. The special 
thing that she was to teach me was the science of 
healing by soul power. I have never been able to 
come to a knowledge of that principle. She gave 
me a great deal of instruction of the so-called prin- 
ciple, but I have not been able to understand it. . . . 
I was there at the time Stanley was there. I made 
the greatest effort to practise upon her principle 
and I have never had any proof that I had attained 
to it.^ 

This statement made in court many years later 
was the fact revealed in the spring of 1872. It was 
the cause of the separation of Mary Baker and 
Richard Kennedy. Stated as he expressed himself 
in court it sounds very simple to a worldling. And 
as Mr. Kennedy related the cause of his separation 
from Mrs. Glover to the author, it appears a reasona- 
ble and ordinary event. He said their separation 
was not due to a quarrel but to a gradual divergence 
of views. He continued practising physical manipu- 
lation throughout a long career. He claimed to 
have no knowledge of Christian Science, having 
never read the text-book and failing to comprehend 
the spiritual significance of what he had been taught 
by word of mouth. 

This divergence of view, that culminated in the 
severance of their relations, was developing for 

* McClure's Magazine, May, 1907. 



206 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

several months. The schoolmistress, Miss Susie 
Magoun, had married and gone to live elsewhere. A 
new tenant was in the house. Mr. Kennedy's social 
life in Lynn had prospered through Miss Magoun's 
introductions. His youth, charm, and affable 
address had made him happy in the acquisition of 
some influential acquaintances. And when the day 
came on which Mrs. Glover and he mutually 
destroyed their contract he went his way quite 
content. Looked at from a purely worldly stand- 
point he had been honorable and had not wronged 
his teacher. 

But Richard Kennedy, as a student, had absorbed 
a great deal of her time, and as a practitioner he had 
absorbed a great deal more. This was relatively 
unimportant; the vital injustice was that he had 
misrepresented her Science to a large number of 
patients and was to misrepresent her for many 
years. Perhaps he had done this unconsciously, even 
as he was the unconscious agent in the precipitation 
of her struggle with the counterfeit of her Science. 
Animal magnetism had to be apprehended, defined, 
and stamped as the ''human concept." Doubtless 
it was as well that the struggle should be precipitated 
through him as another. 

The conflict of opinion between these two resulted 
in fixing the purpose of Mary Baker to write a text- 
book. She had thus far taught Mind Science by 
lectures and by writing out manuscripts for students. 
She distributed such manuscripts unsparingly. 
These were copies of ''The Science of Man," which 
had been copyrighted, and also disquisitions on the 



MESMERISM DETHRONED 207 

Scriptures. She had encouraged her students to 
write their own conceptions of certain portions of 
the Scriptures, to stimulate them to deeper research. 
This practise she discontinued. She saw that they 
were not fitted to do such work any more than 
Kennedy was fitted to make his own deductions. 
Upon her it rested to do the work, and to guard her 
doctrine with the utmost zeal from contamination 
and adulteration. 

When Mary Baker began to rid herself completely 
of the relics of the influence which Quimby had ex- 
erted over her mind, she ordered all her students to 
desist from stroking the head while treating patients 
mentally. She herself had never laid hands on a 
patient to heal him, but she had permitted her 
students to practise by this method. Seeing that the 
method was not in accordance with the principle of 
Divine Science, she wished all her students to dis- 
continue its practise. Now it was that Richard 
Kennedy absolutely rebelled and left her; now it 
was that Miss Bagley of Amesbury refused to be 
guided by her. Wallace W. Wright had already 
come to grief by the use of the method. Mary 
Baker denounced it once and forever. From the 
spring of 1872 manipulation, or physical contact of 
any sort, had no part in Christian Science. And so 
at that early date she substantiated the Science of 
Man and Divine healing. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 

HER application to her purpose from 1872 to 
1875 was more rigid, more exclusive, more 
laborious than it had ever been. Her experience in 
Stoughton and Amesbury had yielded the ''Science 
of Man" manuscript and also certain commentaries 
on the Bible. Now the book which she purposed 
writing was to contain the complete statement of 
Christian Science. It was the book and nothing but 
the book which engrossed her. These three years 
saw her in public rarely, except for the walks she 
took by the sea, those visits to the Red Rocks where 
she used to linger long in meditation. Of these 
three years there is very little to record of her activity. 
But they flowered in the first edition of ''Science 
and Health." If any one reading this life thinks 
this great work was accomplished easily, or that 
when she said the book was given to her as a reve- 
lation, she meant that a personal Deity literally 
guided her hand across the pages, framing the 
words for her, let him consider the ceaseless mental 
toil and spiritual application stretching between the 
miraculous recovery in 1866 and the publication of 
her book in 1875. 

When Mrs. Glover severed her relations with 
Richard Kennedy, he removed to another house 



FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 209 

but she remained in her rooms at South Common 
and Shepard streets for several months. She had 
with her a great deal at this time a Uttle girl named 
Susie Felt, a child of twelve. Mrs. Glover took her 
meals at the child's home and the little maid was so 
attached to her that she spent as much time with 
her as she was permitted. The child found this 
woman, whom her elders sometimes thought distant 
and somber, to be lovely, gracious, and sweet. Like 
Lucy Wentworth she was devoted to her. In later 
years she cherished a ring, a book, and a picture as 
mementos of those happy hours when she had the 
companionship of this great soul, relaxed from the 
toil of the day, when she would tell her the most 
wondrous things her ears had ever heard. Such 
hours were hers in the twilight alone with Mary 
Baker when the divine overflow suffused sweet dew 
that could not harm the tender violets of a child's 
unfolding thoughts. 

But the dove-like cooing of a little child's ques- 
tions or the harmonious enfolding of the diapason 
of the sea, when she listened to its voice, crouched 
alone on the brown rocks, were not all that reached 
her. The change and fluidity of life was in the 
waves, in the flight of the gulls, and in the drifting 
ships. Returning to the city from what was in 
those days a rough unwalled beach, she would see 
the lights of the Lynn factories betokening the pas- 
sionate struggle of human endeavor. Had she 
stood erect on those rocks by the sea, erect in spirit 
while her body crouched for safety against its 
boulders, had she felt her ego slip away from her 

14 



210 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

in some supreme moment when divine sense lifted 
her to the consciousness of spiritual being above 
the waves of time? Even so, she must still return 
to the city, to the work in hand, and alas, to the 
shock of events. 

Most of her students had remained loyal to her 
and to her teaching. Of these were George Barry, 
S. P. Bancroft, Dorcas Rawson, and Miranda Rice. 
She lived for a time with Dorcas Rawson, and she 
lived at several boarding-houses until she secured 
a home of her own. When she left South Common 
street, a student, George Barry, took charge of her 
furnishing. She returned to live for a time with the 
Clarks where she had resided directly after Dr. 
Patterson's desertion. George Clark, who supplied 
the graphic picture of Mrs. Eddy in those days, was 
a witness for her in her divorce suit brought in Salem 
in 1873. He said that Mrs. Eddy waited until 
nearly night for her case to be called and they 
thought it would not be disposed of that day. But 
when she was called to the witness stand the judge 
asked her why her husband had deserted her. She 
replied, "Because he feared arrest." ''Arrest for 
what.^" asked the judge. "For adultery," Mrs. 
Eddy replied quietly. The judge made a brief ex- 
amination of her witnesses and the decree was 
granted. 

George Clark said that Mrs. Eddy worked very 
industriously at her writing while at his mother's 
house and he at one time carried a prospectus of 
her book to Adams & Co., Publishers, in Brom- 
field street. Her manuscript was not accepted, but 



FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 211 

one of his own which he had taken with him at 
the same time was. Clark's book was a boy's 
story of sea-going Ufe which the pubUsher felt 
would sell well. He . rejected Mrs. Glover's book 
for the reason that he saw no possibilities in it for 
profit. 

Mrs. Glover had accompanied Clark to Boston 
and they returned together late in the afternoon. 
She made no comment on her failure, but cheer- 
fully encouraged the young man over his own 
venture, saying his wholesome, breezy story would 
sell well and he might come to be a great author. 
He was much engrossed with those thoughts of 
greatness when they walked through the Lynn 
streets in the early evening nearing home. She sud- 
denly caught him by the arm. '*Stop, George," 
she cried. *'Do you see that church.^ I shall have 
a church of my own some day." 

She struck her hands together as she said this and 
then stood for a minute lost in thought. The young 
man was ashamed of his selfishness, and for a time 
really wished that it had been her book, and not his, 
which had been accepted. But her book was not 
r.eady, nor was it to be published in the ordinary 
way for the profit of a bookman. 

In the spring of 1875 Mrs. Glover was living in 
a boarding-house at Number 9 Broad street. She 
had moved in these three years several times. Her 
doctrine and her absorbed life had brought her in 
conflict with many minds and many persons. Dis- 
cussion, controversy, and ridicule had pursued her, 
making application to her work doubly diflScult. 



212 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

She had nearly completed her book, however, and 
what she needed was absolute peace and seclusion 
in order that she might put those important finish- 
ing touches to her work which would bring it to- 
gether, unify it, complete it. Leaning at the window 
of her room, she gazed down the leafy street, think- 
ing of the dining-room below stairs and its many 
discordant personalities, the latest gibes of her 
worldly critics, the latest smiles and glances and 
expressive shrugs. Was every step of the way of 
this book to be disputed by such hindrance and 
intrusion.^ Leaning there at the window, she 
breathed a silent prayer for a resting-place. 

Lifting her eyes, she saw across the way a little 
frame house with a sign affixed stating that it was 
for sale. It was a two story and a half dwelling 
with a small lawn around it and a shade tree at the 
corner. It had little bow windows and tiny bal- 
conies. Contemplating it, she resolved to own it. 
It should be the first home of Christian Science; 
there she would complete her book. 

This was not an impossible venture. Mrs. Glover 
had received for tuition some funds which she had 
guarded against the possibility of publishing her 
own book. Her life had been frugal, orderly, and 
well-planned. Nothing but the book had kept her 
from organizing large classes. With her own home, 
her work could now go forward with better progress. 
She unfolded her plan to her little group of students 
and certain of them undertook the business arrange- 
ments. The Essex County registry of deeds shows 
that on March 31, 1875, Francis E. Besse, in con- 




THE LITTLE HOUSE IX BROAD STREET, LYNN, MASSACHUSETTS 

Where Mrs. Eddy completed the text of the First Edition of 
Science and Health 



FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 213 

sideration of $5,650, deeded to Mary Baker Glover 
the property of Number 8 Broad street. 

When Mrs. Glover moved into her new home her 
means were so limited she was obliged to lease the 
greater part of the house. She reserved for herself 
the front parlor on the first floor for a class-room 
and furnished it plainly with chairs and tables. 
On the attic floor she also reserved a small bedroom, 
lighted only by a skylight which was in the sloping 
roof and could be lifted like a trap for ventilation. 
In this garret chamber she finished her manuscript 
of ** Science and Health," practically the work of 
nine years. Here she read the proofs of the first 
edition and prepared the revisions for the second 
and third editions. The room was austerely fur- 
nished with a carpet of matting, a bed and dressing 
bureau, a table and straight-backed chair. Its one 
article of luxury was an old-fashioned hair-cloth 
rocker. No one entered this room but Mary Baker 
until the book was finished. On the wall she had 
hung the framed inscription, ''Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me." 

The greater part of Mrs. Glover's new home was 
given over to tenants. Necessity compelled her to 
depend on such sources for an income. She was 
sometimes fortunate in her tenants, but occasionally 
otherwise. Her own simple and well-regulated life, 
entirely devoted to religion, was never the cause of 
comment, except as criticism always attaches to a 
new religious movement. The history of Methodism, 
of Quakerism, of Unitarianism abundantly shows 
this. The daily attendance of her students, their 



214 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

devotion to their teacher, and zeal for their faith 
created astonishment in Lynn and so caused some 
gossip. The purple-and-gold sign, "Christian 
Science Home," which arched the door was the 
cause of much speculation. It became a common 
thing for cripples and invalids to go to the house for 
treatment, and many remarkable cures which Mrs. 
Eddy performed instantaneously are recorded. 

During the summer the little place grew most 
attractive. The affectionate zeal of her students, 
many of whom she had healed from serious com- 
plaints or diseases and some of whom she had re- 
claimed from intemperate lives, made her gardens 
bloom, kept her grass-plot like velvet, and relieved 
the austerity of her parlor with decoration. Mrs. 
Glover's balconies were filled with calla lilies of 
which she was particularly fond, and when she stood 
among them tending and caring for them with the 
sunlight sifting through the leaves of the elm, mak- 
ing splashes of green and gold upon her cool white 
gown, she made a picture of composure and purity. 

Early in the summer Mrs. Glover gave the manu- 
script of her book into the hands of a printer. A 
fund was subscribed to by some of the students to 
insure its publication, and was repaid to them under 
circumstances to be related. There was some halt 
in its publication, even now that everything had ap- 
parently been done for its forthcoming. Mrs. Eddy 
has stated in her autobiography the peculiar cir- 
cumstances of this delay. She had hesitated to in- 
clude in the book a chapter on animal magnetism, 
and she believed it was the Divine purpose that this 



FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 215 

chapter should be written. Months had passed 
since the printer received her copy. He had been 
paid nearly $1,000 but he still delayed, and all 
efforts to persuade him to finish the book were in 
vain. 

Contrary to her inclinations, Mrs. Glover set to 
work at the painful task of delineating the counter- 
feit of Christian Science. She wrote out the manu- 
script for a complete chapter and with this started 
to Boston to confer with the stubborn printer. The 
printer had himself started to see her, however, to 
tell her that he had already prepared the copy 
which he had in hand and wished her to give him 
sufficient more to comprise a closing chapter. 
They met at the Lynn railway station and both 
were astonished. He had come to a standstill 
through motives and circumstances unknown to 
her, but had resumed his work, as his explanations 
showed, at the same time that she had begun writ- 
ing the pages she had been reluctant to pen; and 
now that he was ready for more copy he met her 
on her way to him with the closing chapter of the 
first edition of "Science and Health." 

The book came out in the fall, the edition number- 
ing one thousand. It was a stout volume bound in 
green cloth, a succinct, concise, and lucid statement 
of Christian Science. Though Mrs. Eddy many 
times revised this book, her revision was always 
for what she believed to be an improvement of 
expression. The essential statements are the same 
as in the original volume. Because of these sub- 
sequent labors, because she rearranged the order 



216 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of the chapters, enlarged the explanation in certain 
passages, curtailed it in others, altered the sequence 
of sentences, struck out unnecessary illustration to 
make room for the irresistible enforcement of the 
declaration of her doctrine, certain critics have said 
that the original work has disappeared in the book 
that stands to-day, and a brilliant satirist went so 
far as to say that "Science and Health" was the 
product of another mind than Mary Baker Eddy's. 
Because of the supreme audacity and unscrupu- 
lous wickedness of such an assertion, this first 
edition is indeed a *' precious volume." It holds, 
like the Grail, that receptacle in which the wine 
was given to the disciples, the verities of Chris-. 
tian Science. Was ever a book so attacked as 
this? First, this famous critic declared it ab- 
surd; second, that its ideas were not original; 
third, that "every single detail of it was conceived 
and performed by another." Witness the three dif- 
ferent standpoints of the satirical assailant. First, 
the book is absurd ; the critic could n't understand 
it; he would "rather saw wood" than to try, for he 
did not find the work of analyzing it easy. Second, 
maybe she who claimed to be author did write it, 
but the ideas are not original, for the great idea 
of this book, "the thing back of it," the critic came 
to see, is "wholly gracious and beautiful; the 
power, through loving mercifulness and compas- 
sion, to heal fleshly ills and pains and griefs." ^ 
And he did not see how such an idea could possi- 
bly interest the accredited author. He did not see! 

1 Mark Twain, " Christian Science," p. 284. 



FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 217 

But mark the culminating effect of the book upon 
him and then come to his third standpoint. 

Why should such an idea interest Mary Baker 
Eddy, he wondered, unless she was, as her followers 
believe, *' patient, gentle, loving, compassionate, no- 
ble-hearted, unselfish, sinless — a profound thinker, 
an able writer, a divine personage, an inspired 
messenger." ^ And why should they not so believe .^^ 
The critic went on to say: "She has delivered to 
them a religion which has revolutionized their lives, 
banished the glooms that shadowed them, and filled 
them and flooded them with sunshine and gladness 
and peace; a religion which has no hell; a religion 
whose heaven is not put off to another time, with 
a break and a gulf between, but begins here and 
now, and melts into eternity." ^ 

*'Let the reader turn to the chapter on prayer and 
compare that wise and sane and elevated and lucid 
and compact piece of work with the aforesaid pref- 
ace [the preface to the third edition] and with Mrs. 
Eddy's poetry," said this critic. 

Indeed, let him compare it with Mrs. Eddy's 
sublime hymn, 

"Shepherd, show me how to go 
O'er the hillside steep. 
How to gather, how to sow, ' 
How to feed Thy sheep." 

But the critic's third standpoint was: "I think she 
has from the very beginning been claiming as her 

^ Mark Twain, "Christian Science," p. 285. 
2 Ibid., p. 286. 



218 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

own another person's book, and wearing as her own 
property laurels rightfully belonging to that person 
— the real author of 'Science and Health.' " 

Who is this real author who was first, absurd; 
second, unoriginal; third, an inspired messenger? 
The real author of every word of the first edition, 
and every word, phrase, paragraph, and chapter 
of the very last edition is the one who wrote the 
limping verses of girlhood, the so-called *'Quimby" 
manuscripts with their confusion of ideas, the state- 
ment of the Science of Man, Genesis and Apo- 
calypse, and finally ''Science and Health." She 
was the precocious and nervous girl educated for 
the most part at home ; she was the suffering invalid 
whose pure religion was tampered with by the mes- 
meric influence of a hypnotist ; she was the poor and 
devoted Christian, healing without price and dis- 
tributing her manuscripts to whomsoever would 
read them; she was the absorbed student and de- 
votee, maligned by unfaithful students. 

Who else was it that the scoffing Horace Went- 
worth declared he did not dislike but thought ridicu- 
lous when she sat in his mother's parlor and said she 
had a mission from God to complete the work of 
Jesus Christ on earth ? Who else was it that wrote 
the manuscript which Mrs. Catherine I. Clapp, the 
Wentworth's cousin Kate, was employed to copy 
and which this amanuensis has herself said con- 
tained the first form of the ideas subsequently given 
to the world in "Science and Health," certain para- 
graphs of which she used to scoff at and make 
fun of to her intimates ? Who else was it who 



FIRST EDITION OF SCIENCE AND HEALTH 219 

worked on the book Mother Webster called Mrs. 
Glover's "Bible" when rustics of Amesbury gap- 
ingly watched to see her walk upon the Merrimac 
River? Who else was it that prepared the pros- 
pectus that George Clark carried to a Boston printer 
and had rejected ? Who else was it that wrote the 
manuscripts the student Stanley contended for and 
thought he was wronged because he could not 
possess ? Who else was it that prepared that clos- 
ing chapter on animal magnetism and carried it to 
the printer? Who else was it wrote the scientific 
statement of being? 

Internal evidence or higher criticism will not di- 
vorce this work from its author Mary Baker Eddy 
any more than it will divorce the fourth gospel 
from St. John. The first edition. of "Science and 
Health," which the critics of that day fell upon with 
ironic glee, stands as the model of the finished 
structure of to-day. It was written under the sever- 
est hardships and was revised painstakingly in the 
midst of the multitudinous duties of a leader. It 
has been plagiarized and pirated from, vilified and 
burlesqued, but it will stand. 



CHAPTER XV 

A CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 

THE house at Broad street was purchased by Mrs. 
Glover that it might become a refuge from the 
distraction of fleeting worldly interests encountered 
in boarding-houses; that it might be a haven of 
security insuring her against moving from place to 
place and the intrusion of elements of thought likely 
to create discord in her little flock of students; in 
fact it was bought for a home and designed for a 
center of peace. How shortly it became a storm 
center, a theater of intense mental disturbance, 
must be shown ; for it was while living in this house 
that Mary Baker had enough of agitation, through 
the discord of her early students, the dereliction and 
menace of those she had cherished as friends and 
intimate aids, the failure of the second edition of 
her book, the harassment of a series of petty law- 
suits, and ultimately, the revelation of a dastardly 
plot as ingenious as it was diabolical, to make her 
wish to leave not only the house but Lynn, and to 
seek a new base of activity. 

A great work of promulgation lay before the 
founder of Christian Science. The twilight of dawn 
was revealing its elements in her mind, but they did 
not yet stand forth distinctly. The signs of the 
times were as yet but vague. Looking backward, 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES £21 

philosophic students of history declare that no such 
period of freedom and pure democracy was ever 
experienced in the world's history as was enjoyed 
in the United States from about 1870 to 1880. What 
was to come after in the despotism of trusts and the 
menace of great wealth in the hands of a few was 
not yet dreamed of. America felt young, happy, and 
virtuous. A revived industrialism, following the 
disastrous waste of the Civil War, made the con- 
sciouness of the people buoyant. No one thought of 
criticizing democracy. Only that little group of 
transcendentalists in New England, known as the 
Brook Farm colony, had ever ventured to raise the 
warning cry of the danger of a mechanical society 
plunging ahead to materialism. And the seeds of 
that social experiment had not yielded its harvest 
of socialism. 

But Mary Baker had the nature of a true seer. 
No more than the great Way-shower of Palestine 
would she have dreamed of leading a few followers 
into a community to make a stand against the trend 
of the world. Like Him, she knew the truth must 
be sown broadcast. But the seed must first be 
grown in the little garden plot among her earliest 
students. Renan has said that Jesus could not pos- 
sibly have had a knowledge of Plato or of Buddha 
or of Zoroaster; yet He was aware, by the subtle 
sympathy of humanity, of the elements of the great 
philosophic speculations of His age. It is possible 
that even a scholar like Renan may be mistaken in 
his judgment as to how the seer of God becomes 
possessed of the needs of his time. Mary Baker 



222 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

was not a sociologist, a political economist ; she was 
not concerned with those social passionists whose 
philosophy was shaped at the universities, and who 
were insisting upon the religion of democracy. But 
in her heart of hearts was the seed of truth which 
was to multiply for the health of her age. 

Classes in Christian Science were formed almost 
immediately after Mrs. Glover was settled in her new 
home. All during the summer of 1875, in spite 
of laborious hours spent in her little study under 
the eaves, she conducted classes, and these were 
more numerously attended than were those formerly 
held at South Common street. Though her charge 
for tuition had been advanced from $100 to $300, 
Mrs. Glover's income was still meager for the rea- 
son that she privately admitted the greater per- 
centage of her students without fee, teaching them 
gratis that the work might the more rapidly spread. 
Payment was required from those who were able, 
and some made their payments in instalments. 
Time and experience proved that those who paid 
valued the treasure they secured, while those who 
did not very shortly allowed it to become valueless. 
The weekly wage of the toiler is of infinite sweetness 
to him, while a munificent allowance is an unpal- 
atable surfeit of indulgence to an ingrate. For in 
human nature is the instinct to value only that which 
we acquire by some individual energy. The gospel 
is as free as the sunshine, but the yoke and the 
burden, the leaving of father and mother, are indi- 
cations of the service required; and diffused sun- 
shine is regained only by labor as in mining for coal 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 223 

and diamonds. Concerning the tuition fee for 
class instruction Mrs. Eddy has written in ** Retro- 
spection and Introspection": 

When God impelled me to set a price on my 
instruction in Christian Science Mind-healing, I 
could think of no financial equivalent for an im- 
partation of a knowledge of that divine power which 
heals ; but I was led to name three hundred dollars 
as the price for each pupil in one course of lessons 
at my college, — a startling sum for tuition lasting 
barely three weeks. This amount greatly troubled 
me. I shrank from asking it, but was finally led, 
by a strange providence, to accept this fee. God 
has since shown me, in multitudinous ways, the 
wisdom of this decision; and I beg disinterested 
people to ask my loyal students if they consider 
three hundred dollars any real equivalent for my 
instruction during twelve half -days, or even in half 
as many lessons. Nevertheless, my list of indigent 
charity scholars is very large, and I have had as 
many as seventeen in one class. ^ 

Among the students in the first class held in 
Broad street was Daniel H. Spofford, a man who 
figured largely in the events of the next few years. 
He came from New Hampshire, and as a youth had 
lived in Eastern Massachusetts, working as a chore 
boy on farms and later as a watchmaker's appren- 
tice until he entered the army at the age of nine- 
teen. He served through the Civil War and when 
he was mustered out returned to Lynn and entered 
the shoe-shops. He first met Mrs. Glover in South 
Common street. He did not enter her class there, 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 71. 



224 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

but had access to her manuscripts through another 
student and copied them, or portions of them, for 
his private perusal. Leaving Lynn for a three 
years' sojourn in Southern and Western states, he 
carried these copies about with him, pondering and 
studying them. Being awakened to a faith which 
he but partially grasped, he returned to Lynn and 
attempted to practise Mind-healing without further 
acquaintance with the author of the manu- 
scripts. 

Mrs. Glover heard of this man and his efforts to 
practise her doctrine. She smiled at the excited 
students who reported the facts to her and sent a 
messenger to him with a note which read: ''Mr. 
Spofford, I tender you a cordial invitation to join 
my next class and receive my instruction in healing 
the sick without medicine, — without money and 
without price." So Mr. Spofford became one of 
those students who because of his quaUties was 
given his instruction gratis.^ 

^ Mr. Spofford recently made an affidavit to the effect that he met Mary 
Baker Glover in 1870, that she taught metaphysical healing from manuscripts 
the authorship of which she attributed to P. P. Quimby. Yet Daniel Spofford, 
shortly after his graduation from her class in May, 1875, imequivocally as- 
cribed to this same Mary Baker Glover the authorship and discovery of Chris- 
tian Science and signed his name to a resolution drawn up for the purpose of 
creating an organization of Christian Scientists. Mr. Spofford himself pro- 
duces the data which contradicts his own affidavit. The author has recently 
visited Mr. Spofford at his present home in a country settlement between Haver- 
hill and Amesbury. 1 went for the express purpose of asking him to explain 
the discrepancy between his statements of Mrs. Eddy's teachings, the one in 
his affida%'it printed in McClure's Magazine for May, 1907, and the one in the 
resolution which he helped to draw up in 1875. 

Mr. Spofford is to-day a man about sixty-five, slightly bent in carriage, with 
clear blue eyes and whitened hair. His manner is very gentle and courteous, 
and his personality sensitive and I should say, idealistic, Mr, Spofford made 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 225 

It was directly after Mr. Spofford's completion 
of class work that he called together a meeting of 
students for the purpose of arranging for renting a 
hall and raising a subscription toward sustaining 
Mrs. Glover as a teacher and instructor in weekly 
services. Mr. Spofford's emotional and moral na- 
ture had been deeply stirred by his class work, so 
truly affected that he was able to say thirty-five 
years after to hostile critics of Mrs. Eddy that no 
price could be put upon what Mrs. Glover gave her 
students, that the mere manuscripts which he had 
formerly studied were, compared to her expounding 
of them, as the printed page of a musical score com- 
pared to its interpretation by a master. 

no immediate reply to my question as to the disparity. After some hesitation 
he tm-ned from the question by saying, "I believe Mis, Eddy is the sole author 
of 'Science and Health' and I beheve it is the greatest book in the world 
outside the Bible. ... I don't wish it to be understood that I have said Chris- 
tian Science was Quimbyism. I said that Mrs. Eddy taught some of the 
Quimby doctrine when I first knew her in 1870. Mrs, Eddy developed her 
own ideas and wrote her own book, 'Science and Health,' and I was the pub- 
lisher of the first edition and 1 know that book thoroughly. I don't confuse in 
my own mind the work of Quimby and of Mrs. Eddy. I don't see why the 
world should do so. It is clear to me that Mrs. Eddy at first taught some of 
the ideas of Quimby; that later she abandoned those ideas entirely for her 
own, incorporating her own system of religious interpretation in her book." 

Mr. Spofford stated that he had been forced by persons who came into her 
circle to abandon Mrs. Eddy and the teaching of Christian Science. Mr. Spof- 
ford suppUed the aforesaid magazine with a private letter of Mrs. Eddy to him- 
self, written before her marriage to Dr. Eddy. In that letter occurs this passage: 

"No student or mortal has tried to have you leave me that I know of. Dr. 
Eddy has tried to have you stay. You are in a mistake ; it is God and not man 
who has separated us and for the reason I begin to learn. Do not think of re- 
turning to me again. . . . God produces the separation and I submit to it. So 
must you. There is no cloud between us, but the way you set me up for a 
Dagon is wrong, and now I implore you to return forever from this error of 
personality and go alone to God as I have taught you." — Human Lije, July, 
1907. 

15 



226 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

The meeting of students which Mr. Spofford 
called together appointed a committee to carry out 
the will of the meeting and the committee was 
composed of the three who supposedly stood nearest 
to the teacher at the time, each one of whom was 
to participate in one of the petty lawsuits which 
presently involved the community of students in 
strife. These students composed for the time a 
committee harmonious in devotion to the cause and 
enthusiastic for its furtherance. They drew up the 
following resolutions: 

Whereas, in times not long past, the Science 
of healing, new to the age, and far in advance of 
all other modes, was introduced into the city of 
Lynn by its discoverer, a certain lady, Mary Baker 
Glover, 

And, whereas, many friends spread the good 
tidings throughout the place, and bore aloft the 
standard of life and truth which had declared free- 
dom to many manacled with the bonds of disease 
or error. 

And, whereas, by the wicked and wilful dis- 
obedience of an individual, who has no name in 
Love, Wisdom, or Truth, the light was obscured 
by clouds of misinterpretations and mists of mys- 
tery, so that God's work was hidden froin the 
world and derided in the streets. 

Now, therefore, we students and advocates of 
this moral science called the Science of Life, have 
arranged with the said Mary Baker Glover to preach 
to us or direct our meetings on the Sabbath of each 
week, and hereby covenant with one another, and 
by these presents do publish and proclaim that we 
have agreed and do each and all agree to pay weekly, 
for one year, beginning with the sixth day of June, 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 



227 



A. D. 1875, to a treasurer chosen by at least seven 
students the amount set opposite our names, pro- 
vided, nevertheless, the moneys paid by us shall 
be expended for no other purpose or purposes than 
the maintenance of said Mary Baker Glover as 
teacher or instructor, than the renting of a suit- 
able hall and other necessary incidental expenses, 
and our signatures shall be a full and sufficient 
guarantee of our faithful performance of this 
contract. 
(Signed) 

Elizabeth M. Newhall . . . $1.50 

Dan'l H. Spofford 2.00 

George H. Allen 2.00 

Dorcas B. Rawson 1.00 

Asa T. N. Macdonald ... .50 

George W. Barry 2.00 

S. P. Bancroft .50 

Miranda R. Rice ....... .50 

This was the first step toward a Christian Science 
church. It will be seen from the amounts pledged 
by the signers of the resolutions that they did not 
have very much to contribute and the whole sum 
amounted to only ten dollars per week, part of 
which was to go for the necessary expense of a 
hall. But the meetings begun in this humble way 
continued as long as Mrs. Eddy remained in Lynn. 
Her student, S. P. Bancroft, conducted the singing, 
his wife playing the melodeon. The hall was one 
used by the Good Templars and was rather small. 
The audiences seldom exceeded twenty-five. 

Besides teaching, preaching, and writing, Mrs. 
Glover performed many healings. She healed 
George Barry of consumption; she caused Mrs. 



228 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Rice to have a painless delivery of a child. These 
two students were so devoted to her that they were 
continually about her house, rivaling each other in 
services to their teacher. Barry habitually ad- 
dressed her as "Mother." He inscribed to her the 
lines of poetry he wrote, of which the following is 
an example of his state of mind, if not of any par- 
ticular genius for verse making : 

" O, mother mine, God grant I ne'er forget. 
Whatever be my grief or what my joy, 
The unmeasured, unextinguishable debt 
I owe to thee, but find my sweet employ 
Ever through thy remaining days to be 
To thee as faithful as thou wast to me." 

The young man spaded her garden, went to 
market for her, carried messages to and from the 
printer in Boston, and in many ways made himself 
an efficient aid. Mrs. Glover taught him patiently 
for he was not educated. She corrected his penman- 
ship and orthography, and after he had shown some 
advancement allowed him to do some copying for 
her. When he presently fell in love, he brought the 
young woman of his choice to see Mrs. Glover. 
She received her not only as a friend but as a student, 
and gave her sanction to the marriage which 
presently followed. It was understood that Mrs. 
Glover felt as a mother toward Barry, and such a 
relationship with her was recognized by the other 
students. 

Dorcas Rawson and Barry were the students who 
arranged for buying the Broad street house. When 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 229 

the first edition of "Science and Health" was pub- 
Ushed they, with Elizabeth Newhall, undertook to 
dispose of the one thousand volumes, making short 
journeys into the adjoining towns and canvassing 
from door to door with them, talking Christian 
Science wherever they could get a hearing, and fre- 
quently winning disciples who later came to Mrs. 
Glover for instruction. George Barry considered 
himself chief agent for the disposal of the book. He 
had an interest in its sale, for he and Elizabeth 
Newhall had advanced the money for its publica- 
tion. 

As yet everything was moving harmoniously in 
the little home. But the advent of a new personality 
was to throw the band of workers into a confusion 
of jealousy. The new figure in the drama of the 
early church work was Asa Gilbert Eddy. Mr. 
Eddy was sent to Mrs. Glover by the Godfreys of 
Chelsea. 

Mrs. Glover had instantly healed a finger on Mrs. 
Godfrey's right hand from which she was suffer- 
ing greatly. Mrs. Godfrey had broken a needle in 
her hand and further aggravated the wound by 
poisoning it with colored thread. For weeks she 
had carried her hand in a sling, refusing to allow the 
finger to be amputated as a physician advised. Vis- 
iting her relatives who were Mrs. Glover's tenants, 
she had been most astonishingly healed. Retiring 
as usual, she arose with the finger cured. Her as- 
tonishment and gratitude was such that she sent 
many patients to Mrs. Glover, brought her own 
child through a blinding snowstorm to be cured of 



230 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

membranous croup, sent a workman who had 
fallen from the roof of a house and lost the use 
of his arm. All these cases were cured by Mrs. 
Glover. 

Now the Godfreys were acquainted with Mr. 
Eddy. They described him to the author as a grave, 
sweet-tempered man, to whom children were de- 
voted. He was a bachelor living in East Boston, an 
agent for a sewing-machine concern. He was not 
in good health and the Godfreys, recounting to him 
their unusual experiences, impressed upon him the 
idea of visiting Mrs. Glover. 

When Mr. Eddy visited Mary Baker she not only 
healed him, but advised him to enter a new class 
she was forming. She read his character and read 
it aright. He was a man of such gentleness and 
sweetness that persons knowing him but slightly 
were often led to think him devoid of the true force 
of manliness. He was, however, so those who knew 
him best declared, possessed of the staying quality 
of sterling integrity. Seldom assertive, preferring to 
master a situation by patiently studying it and mov- 
ing conciliatingly and gently among the forces at 
play, he could, when occasion demanded, act with 
a masterfulness that commanded instant respect. 
Mrs. Glover placed considerable responsibility in 
Mr. Eddy's hands very early in their acquaintance 
and as soon as she did so a conflict of personalities 
began which shook her circle from circumference 
to center. 

Daniel Spofford had opened an office in Lynn 
directly after finishing his class instruction. His 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 231 

practise had been quite successful and had had two 
years to grow into a flourishing condition. Mrs. 
Glover had been revising her book during these two 
years and was aware of the slow and unsatisfactory 
way in which the first edition was being gradually 
disposed of. She sent for Spofford and laid before 
him the needs of the movement. The book must be 
sent forth to do the work it was written to do. She 
needed greater business ability than George Barry 
possessed to accomplish this. A new edition must 
be watched through the press, and ways and means 
of circulation thought out. She asked Daniel Spof- 
ford to undertake this work. Spofford assured her 
of his willingness but referred to his practise. What 
should he do with that.^ Mrs. Glover told him to 
give it into the hands of Mr. Eddy. 

An extraordinary move in any organization causes 
instant excitement in all its parts unless the whole 
is so unified that it will act in perfect harmony. 
George Barry, who had professed such profound love 
and intentions of devotion toward his teacher, now 
instantly rebelled when acquainted with her desire 
to relieve him of the direction of her publication. 
He who had been all docility and gentleness, while 
he felt himself the most important personage in the 
field, now went into a paroxysm of rage and would 
not come near the Broad street house. Spofford was 
in little better mood. He affected to accept the 
situation cheerfully, but constantly hinted that he 
was being driven out, that a cloud had come between 
him and his teacher, that certain students were try- 
ing to compel him to leave her. But, he asserted, 



232 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

nothing should compel him to do so. They might 
try to their utmost, but he would stand faithful to 
his post. 

The talk waged back and forth among the stud- 
ents. Barry was angry, Spofford was offended, the 
women students who had made desultory efforts to 
sell the book felt themselves criticized in the new 
arrangement. Some of the patients did not like Mr. 
Eddy as well as they had Mr. Spoff ord ; some liked 
him better. And so the jealousies waged for many 
months. In the midst of the struggle of personali- 
ties Mrs. Glover quietly married Asa Gilbert Eddy, 
and the war temporarily ceased. The marriage took 
place on New Year's Day, 1877. The Unitarian 
clergyman, the Rev. Samuel B. Stewart, whose ser- 
vices Mrs. Glover had formerly attended with Rich- 
ard Kennedy and Miss Susie Magoun, performed 
the ceremony. 

Sobered by this unlooked-for event, the students 
for a time were quieted. Barry who all the time had 
expected to be solicited to return became ominously 
silent. Mr. Spoff ord, who received back his practise 
when Mrs. Eddy was married, attended to his extra 
duties with some address but with mingled feelings. 
He had entertained other ideas which this event 
had dashed to the ground, and for a time he knew 
of nothing better to do than attend to his work with- 
out complaint. Other students showed their pleasure 
in what they regarded as a romantic and humanizing 
incident by giving Mr. and Mrs. Eddy a reception 
about three weeks after the wedding, bringing vari- 
ous bridal gifts to her house and spreading a supper 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 233 

there. They made speeches indicative of their good 
feeling and generally betrayed a desire to make a 
rosy ring around their teacher and the man she had 
chosen to honor. 

Mrs. Eddy replied to their good- will offering with 
an address which brought them out of the somewhat 
hectic sentimentalism which threatened to inundate 
her. She spoke of her marriage as a spiritual union 
and recalled them to their fidelity to truth and the 
noble purposes they had cherished. She then took 
the Bible and read from it, expounding certain pas- 
sages until she brought the company into its usual 
sense of the spiritual work she wished her students 
to perform. They beheld their teacher and leader, 
the same Mary Baker, with hands as ever out- 
stretched to them with the spiritual gift to be trans- 
ferred through them to the whole human race and to 
the age ; with growing solemnity they saw through her 
eyes the far horizon and the vision of the work they 
had to do. Mr. Eddy at this moment became simply 
one of them again, a student who stood a little closer, 
but still a student. He, like them, must carry out 
her directions that the spreading of Christian Science 
should not languish, but to him was the special duty 
given of guarding her against the onslaughts of the 
envious and ambitious who pressed too close with 
their human desires. 

If for a time Mrs. Eddy's influence lulled the 
storm, it suddenly broke forth again and now fol- 
lowed storm upon storm. George Barry was the 
first to move. He brought suit against her in the 
spring of 1877 to recover $2,700 which he said was 



234 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

due him for services extending over five years. His 
bill of particulars stated his services very minutely. 
He mentions copying manuscripts, searching for a 
printer, moving goods from the tenement on South 
Common street, disposing of some articles at auction 
and storing others, clearing up rooms, paying rent 
for same, withdrawing moneys from the Boston Sav- 
ings Bank, aiding in buying the house at 8 Broad 
street, aiding in selecting carpets and furniture, help- 
ing to move and putting down carpets, working in 
the garden. He made items of fifty cents for fetch- 
ing up a pail of coal from the cellar, items for walk- 
ing out with her in the evening in search of a dwelling. 
There was nothing that he did not mention in his 
bill of particulars, even to a pair of boots which he 
bought for himself with her money. As for the 
copying, he had done it so badly that his work was 
useless to her. Mrs. Eddy had taught him, healed 
him, paid many of his debts, guided him in his mar- 
riage, and directed his practise as she did that of 
many of her students. 

When the suit was heard in court Mrs. Eddy went 
on the stand and explained her relations with the 
young man, how she had practically adopted him, 
and what her intentions toward him had been. Her 
attorney, Charles P. Thompson, argued: "It is im- 
portant to look at the relations of the parties and at 
what their understanding was at the time of render- 
ing and receiving services. If the understanding 
was that of an exchange of services without any com- 
pensation, it cannot be revoked." Barry recovered 
$350 instead of $2,700 and afterwards repented and 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 235 

made a tentative effort to return to her good- will. 
But whether or no that was a serious intention will 
be presently shown. 

Mrs. Eddy's next troubles were with Spofford. 
She was preparing the manuscript for her second 
edition. In the midst of this labor Mr. Spofford 
began to evince a renewal of his dissatisfied frame 
of mind. He balked at all of her advice and con- 
tinually declared that the book could not be financed. 
While striving to make the way plain for him, her 
business agent, and continuing her literary labors, 
her doors were thronged with perplexed students 
who wished her help in healing patients. The stud- 
ents pressed upon her so with their varying needs that 
she was finally driven to leave her home for a time 
with her husband and keep her whereabouts un- 
known, for they interrupted her work and the book 
lay waiting. 

She gave Mr. Spofford a Boston address and from 
there wrote him several letters urging him to speak 
to certain of the students and patients for her. 
Among them were two young women of Ipswich, 
the wife of the mayor of Newburyport, and a manu- 
facturer of Boston, all of whom had pressed her for 
attention and healing. She wished them to be in- 
structed in the necessity of doing their own mental 
work and thus to cease interfering with the more 
important work which lay upon her. Concerning 
these matters she wrote him: **If the students still 
continue to think of me and to call on me I shall at 
last defend myself and this will be to cut them off 
from me utterly in a spiritual sense by a bridge they 



236 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

cannot pass over. ... I will let you hear from me 
as soon as I can return to prosecute my work on the 
Book. ... I am going far away and shall remain 
until you will do your part and give me some better 
prospect." ^ 

And again she wrote him: ''If you conclude not 
to carry the work forward on the terms named, it 
will have to go out of edition as I can do no more 
for it, and I believe this hour is to try my students 
who think they have the cause at heart and see if 
it be so. . . . The conditions I have named to you 
I think are just. . . . Now, dear student, you can 
work as your teacher has done before you, unself- 
ishly, as you wish to, and gain the reward of such 
labor. Meantime, you can be fitting yourself for 
a higher plane of action and its reward." ^ 

Mr. Spofford's reply to this earnest solicitation 
that he should apply himself to pushing the book 
came in July of that year. He closed out the stock 
of ''Science and Health" which he had received 
from George Barry and Elizabeth Newhall, and 
paid over the money from the sale of these books, 
something over $600, to these two students. They 
had supplied the capital for the first edition in con- 
sideration of gratitude to their teacher. They npw 
received all the profits that had accrued, as Mrs. 
Eddy had no agreement with them for a royalty. 
There was a loss all around by this premature act. 
Mr. Spofford claimed $500 against the edition for 
personal expenses, which he could not by such hasty 

^ From letters furnished McClure's Magazine. 
2 Ibid. 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 237 

and ill-advised methods realize. The students 
themselves lost by the transaction. The publica- 
tion of the book was temporarily interrupted and 
the author left without means to finance the second 
edition which was still in press. When the second 
edition finally came out it was found to be a slim 
book, labelled Volume II, though there was no 
Volume I. It was wellnigh a failure; its typo- 
graphical errors were legion. 

Now it is not necessary to inquire rigidly into the 
mental state of Daniel Spofford at that time to under- 
stand what had happened. He complained later 
that Mrs. Eddy did not understand the situation; he 
said that she was a woman and surrounded by many 
advisers, and would suggest that her life was in 
small like a queen's court where suspicion and jeal- 
ousies are rife and that one could not act for her 
firmly and steadfastly and bring about satisfactory 
results. Doubtless he had some business trials, 
doubtless there were many difficulties in financing a 
book of this character, and doubtless there was un- 
warrantable interference from the various students 
who wanted the text-book, wanted to see it circulated 
speedily and widely. But a man of ability should 
have silenced the intruders, should have worked 
patiently and purposefully, and should not have 
wound up so important a business as had been 
intrusted to him by rash precipitation. 

Mrs. Eddy was justly indignant at his gross mis- 
management of her affairs and his extraordinary 
method of accounting. He left her stranded without 
the means to forward a second edition. This might 



238 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

have been remedied had he withdrawn. But he did 
not withdraw. He called on her, not to explain his 
trials and the disadvantages under which he labored, 
but to tell her that he intended to remove from her 
all means for carrying on her work, ''for," said he, 
"you have proven yourself incapable as a leader, 
and I propose to carry on this work myself and 
alone." 

Thus Spofford did not go quietly and leave Mrs. 
Eddy to gather up the strands that were broken. 
He began to practise and to teach in opposition to 
her and to call upon her students with the object of 
deflecting them from her to himself as he had 
threatened he would do. 

How did Mrs. Eddy meet these trials.^ It has 
been stated that she authorized and inspired at her 
house in Broad street meetings of devoted students 
who concentrated their thoughts upon individuals, 
— presumably Kennedy, Spofford, and Barry, — 
that a formula of mental suggestion was used against 
them. 

Perhaps the charge that Mrs. Eddy so instructed 
her students to gather in a body and work mentally 
to do injury to others may be considered as an ex- 
ample illustrating her statement, ''As of old, evil 
still charges the spiritual idea with error's own na- 
ture and methods." Christian Scientists who were 
in the movement in its first decade have stated 
that there is absolutely nothing hidden or occult 
in the teaching of Christian Science and that they 
have never known of a concerted effort of thought 
being made to bring about any result against an 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 239 

individual. There is, in fact, no secret doctrine. 
But they have said that Mrs. Eddy steadfastly 
from the beginning of her teaching to the close 
instructed her students never to seek to injure 
another mentally. 

Mrs. Eddy says in "Miscellaneous Writings," **I 
have no skill in occultism; and I could not if I 
would, and would not if I could, harm any one 
through the mental method of Mind-healing, or in 
any other manner." Indeed, Mrs. Eddy would 
have had to go back on everything she had ever 
taught or written of the working of divine love ia 
the consciousness of the individual had she suggested 
that destructive thought be used against those who 
were opposing her work. The idea is utterly in- 
harmonious with the fundamental tenets of her 
faith. 

However, it is not possible to state whether that 
early group of pioneer students did or did not meet 
to concentrate their thoughts against individuals 
with the idea of destroying their harmful influence. 
Certainly they did not have Mrs. Eddy's inspiration 
for such an endeavor, and in doing so must have de- 
parted from her teachings. But Mrs. Eddy had 
propounded not only the doctrine of Divine Mind 
governing all reality, she had indicated the rival 
force of illusion in the theory of mesmerism or ani- 
mal magnetism and in the second edition of her 
book, the so-called Volume II, she had further in- 
dicated the working of this hypnotic force. She had 
come to see that manipulation is not the only method 
of hypnotism, but that the mind acts independently 



UO THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of matter for evil as well as for good. Now the 
little handful of struggling neophytes had not learned 
how to meet this evil and were doubtless more or 
less frightened at the notion of it. 

Some of the students saw in the dereliction of 
Daniel Spofford the operation of malicious animal 
magnetism/ and became much alarmed. Miss 
Lucretia Brown of Ipswich particularly declared 
that Mr. Spofford was causing her to suffer a re- 
lapse into ill health by calling upon her and sug- 
gesting that she was not in health. Miss Dorcas 
Rawson, who was one of the earliest students, was 
Miss Brown's teacher and healer. She reported 

* Malicious Animal Magnetism is a term used in Christian Science, and 
perhaps it may be proper to define its significance, since it has been largely mis- 
apprehended in the public press of late. The word magnetism was first applied 
to a peculiar attraction of iron ore, so named because it was discovered in the 
city of Magnesia. Later the word animal was joined to it to define electrical 
experiments with an animal. This term, animal magnetism, eventually came 
to include the peculiar influence one person was able to exert over another by 
physical contact. In this sense animal magnetism is similar, if not identical, 
with the term mesmerism, referring directly to the experiments of Mesmer. 
The more modern term, hypnotism, has the peculiar significance of the power 
of mind over mind without the necessity of actual physical contact. . . . 
Through Mrs. Eddy's teaching, the term animal magnetism has become broad 
enough to include any and all action of the human mind, applying it to that 
peculiar power, influence, or force which is possessed by the creature in con- 
tradistinction to the Creator. Since Christian Science has introduced the prop- 
osition that God is the only real Mind, the carnal mind in all its varied mani- 
festations is naturally, in the interest of self-preservation, arrayed against it. 
Therefore, every wilful phase of this human opposition which is created by the 
introduction of Science is malicious. Hence the use of the term malicious 
animal magnetism. It is magnetism because it refers to a supposed power 
independent of God; malicious, in keeping with the Scriptural declaration, 
"The Carnal mind is enmity against God." Mrs. Eddy refers to it as the 
human antipode of Divine Science. It is a term which is broad enough to 
include all that is opposed to God. It includes every phase of evil, every 
phase of human antagonism to truth. — From an interview with Alfred 
Farlow in Human Life, August, 1907. 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 241 

Miss Brown's condition to Mrs. Eddy and the fact 
that Daniel Spofford had called upon Miss Brown. 
Miss Rawson suggested that he be restrained from 
malicious interference with her work. Miss Brown 
also urged it, as she declared she suffered much 
from his interference. 

Mrs. Eddy had nothing to do with the suit at law 
which was presently brought by Miss Brown. She 
has always shown herself not only just, but admir- 
ably sane, in all her worldly transactions. So, in- 
stead of advising this suit, she advised against it, 
but was not insistent to the point of rupture. She 
was engaged with her own affairs and would not per- 
mit the frightened students to encroach too heavily 
upon her time. The suit brought by themselves 
and in their own folly bore all the marks of haste and 
fear. The bill of complaint drawn up by Miss 
Brown reads: 

Humbly complaining, the plaintiff, Lucretia 
L. S. Brown of Ipswich, in said County of Essex, 
showeth unto your Honors, that Daniel H. Spofford, 
of Newburyport, in said County of Essex, the de- 
fendant in the above entitled action, is a mesmerist 
and practises the art of mesmerism and by his said 
art and the power of his mind influences and con- 
trols the minds and bodies of other persons and 
uses his said power and art for the purpose of in- 
juring the persons and property and social relations 
of others and does by said means so injure them. 

And the plaintiff further showeth that the said 
Daniel H. Spofford has at divers times and places 
since the year 1875 wrongfully and maliciously 
and with intent to injure the plaintiff, caused the 

16 



242 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

plaintiff by means of his said power and art great 
suffering of body and mind and severe spinal pains 
and neuralgia and a temporary suspension of mind 
and still continues to cause the plaintiff the same. 
And the plaintiff has reason to fear and does fear 
that he will continue in the future to cause the same. 
And the plaintiff says that said injuries are great 
and of an irreparable nature and that she is wholly 
unable to escape from the control and influence he 
so exercises upon her and from the aforesaid effects 
of said control and influence. 

The students thronged to Mrs. Eddy's house be- 
fore the suit was tried, beseeching her to join with 
them, to at least attend the hearing at the Supreme 
Judicial Court in Salem. She at last yielded to the 
extent of accompanying them on that morning in 
May, 1878. A new student, Edward J. Arens, 
argued the case. Mrs. Eddy was amazed at his 
arguments so contrary were they in their purport 
to her teaching, especially the argument that Miss 
Brown had no power to withstand the injuries she 
complained of. Nor was Mrs. Eddy at all sur- 
prised at the decision of the judge that it was not in 
the power of the court to control Mr. Spofford's 
mind. *'Most certainly it was not in the power of 
the court," Mrs. Eddy declared to her students. 
She rebuked them severely, pointing out that the 
suit was but an exhibition of their own wilfulness 
in attempting to protect mind and health otherwise 
than as she had taught them. She returned to her 
home to insist for the future more strenuously, more 
decidedly, on her doctrine of meeting evil by resting 
in the confidence of Divine Love. 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 243 

The student Arens, who argued what was called 
at the time the ''Ipswich Witchcraft case," had been 
received for instruction by Mrs. Eddy in the fall of 
1877. He was a cabinet-maker of Lynn, an ener- 
getic, ambitious young man, and when he came into 
Christian Science he found Mrs. Eddy's affairs in 
that languishing and entangled state to which Daniel 
Spofford had brought them. He wished to show his 
personal force, to push the sale of the book, and to 
realize for the cause of the book and the young so- 
ciety funds that would put life into its circulation 
and thus permit of a broader scope of activity. His 
efforts were more vigorous than well-advised, and 
two years later Mrs. Eddy wrote thus of his activity 
in her affairs: 

"In the interests of truth we ought to say that 
never a lawsuit has entered into our history volun- 
tarily. We have suffered great losses and direct 
injustice rather than go to law, for we have always 
considered a lawsuit of two evils the greater. About 
two years ago the persuasions of a student awakened 
our convictions that we might be doing wrong in 
permitting students to break their obligations with 
us. . . . The student who argued this point to us so 
convincingly offered to take the notes and collect 
them, without any participation of ours. We trusted 
him with the whole affair, doing only what he told 
us, for we were utterly ignorant of legal proceedings. 
It was alleged indirectly in the Newbury port Herald 
that we caused a bill to be filed in the Supreme 
Court to restrain a student of ours from practising 
mesmerism. That statement was utterly false. It 



244 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

was a student who did that contrary to our advice 
and judgment and we have the affidavit of the re- 
luctant plaintiff certifying to this fact." ^ 

The case directly referred to is "the Ipswich 
affair," and the plaintiff, Miss Lucretia Brown. 
Other cases which Arens brought in Mrs. Eddy's 
name were the suits against Stanley and Tuttle, re- 
ferred to in a previous chapter, and a suit against 
Richard Kennedy brought in the municipal court of 
Suffolk county, Massachusetts, in February, 1878, 
to collect a promissory note made in 1870. The 
suit against Stanley and Tuttle resulted unfavor- 
ably because the defendants claimed that Mrs. 
Eddy had first instructed them to manipulate the 
head, and later instructed them to treat differently, 
without touching the patient, and they claimed to 
have been confused and to have received no benefits. 
In the case of Kennedy, judgment was awarded in 
Mrs. Eddy's favor. The note for which suit was 
brought read: 

In consideration of two years' instruction in 
healing the sick, I hereby agree to pay Mary Baker 
Glover one thousand dollars in quarterly instal- 
ments of fifty dollars, commencing from this date, 
February, 1870. 

(Signed) Richard Kennedy. 

In April Arens arranged a suit against Daniel 
Spofford to collect from him a royalty on his prac- 
tise for unpaid tuition fees. This suit was dismissed 
for insujfficient service. Barry's suit against Mrs. 

^ "Science and Health," third edition. 



CONFLICT OF PERSONALITIES 245 

Eddy was still dragging on and was not settled until 
October of the following year. Keeping in mind 
these suits at law, with their varying results for 
which the activity of Arens was responsible, the 
reader has a fairly clear idea of the maze of Mrs. 
Eddy's affairs in the spring and summer of 1878. 
Arens had arrayed against her in a definite w^ay the 
minds of Kennedy and Spofford, and Barry who 
knew them both well was in opposition on his own 
account. 

It was at this time that George Barry wrote the 
following letter to Mrs. Eddy which, considering 
events about to befall, may illuminate what was al- 
ways regarded as an inscrutable conspiracy. The 
letter shows the peculiar nature of young Barry and 
also, indirectly, the nature of others. It reads : 

It is evident to me that you desire Dr. Kennedy 
to leave the city, and I think also it would be for 
your interest to accomplish this end. The relations 
between he and I are probably of a different nature 
from what you suppose, as I owe him a debt on the 
past, which, if driving him from Lynn will accom- 
plish, it can and shall be done. He thinks I am 
your greatest enemy, and favor, if either, his side. 
Let him continue to think so ; it will do me no harm. 
For my part I rather a person would come out 
boldly and fearlessly as you and I did facing each 
other, than to sneak like a snake in the grass, spit- 
ting his poison venom into them he would slay. I 
have said I owe Dr. Kennedy on an old score, and 
the interview I had with him last night has in- 
creased that debt, so that I am now determined, if 
it be your object also, as two heads are better than 
one, to drive him from Lynn. Why should we be 



246 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

enemies, especially if we have one great object in 
common? Perhaps we can be united on this, and 
the result may be that this city will finally be rid 
of one of the greatest humbugs that ever disgraced 
her fair face. All this can be accomplished but 
as I said before, it is necessary to be very cautious, 
and not let the fact of our communicating together 
be known, as a friend in the enemy's camp is an 
advantage not to be overlooked. 

This thoroughly detestable letter is so artless in 
its wickedness as to need no comment. It w^as 
without the shadow of a doubt an effort to inveigle 
Mrs. Eddy into a dishonorable correspondence with 
its wretched author. Whether or not it was a part 
of the forthcoming inscrutable conspiracy can only 
be conjectured. Mrs. Eddy's reply to her erstwhile 
student was very brief: ''We will help you always 
to do right; but with regard to your proposition to 
send Dr. Kennedy out of Lynn we recommend that 
you leave this to God; his sins will find him 
out." 



CHAPTER XVI 

A STRANGE CONSPIRACY 

DURING the summer which followed the law- 
suits arranged and prosecuted by the student 
Arens, affairs at Number 8 Broad street progressed 
more quietly. Both Mr. and Mrs. Eddy were teach- 
ing metaphysics. Mrs. Eddy's classes were held at 
her Lynn home, but Mr. Eddy taught in East Cam- 
bridge and in Boston, as well as in Lynn. The dis- 
affected student Spofford was seldom seen in Lynn. 
He had opened an office in Boston and still retained 
one in Newburyport. 

In October, 1878, the Boston Herald printed an 
article stating that Daniel Spofford had disappeared 
and his friends were greatly alarmed concerning 
him. A description of him was given and other 
papers were asked to copy it. A few days later the 
same paper stated that his body had been found and 
was lying at the morgue. On the twenty-ninth of 
October the Herald was able for the first time to 
print a fact in this case, relating that Asa Gilbert 
Eddy and Edward J. Arens were under arrest for 
conspiring to murder Daniel Spofford. 

After the lapse of many years it is as difficult to 
form an opinion concerning this amazing charge as 
it was at the time of its occurrence. It is difficult 
because it requires one to follow the tangled threads 



248 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

of a conspiracy, a conspiracy so well wrought as at 
first to deceive the grand jury of the Commonwealth 
of Massachusetts, and, as was afterward found, too 
intricate to yield its prime mover even under legal 
scrutiny, and the indictment against Mr. Eddy and 
Mr. Arens was quashed by the District Attorney, 
Oliver Stevens. It may be well to state at once that 
Mr. Spofford had not had a hair of his head harmed, 
and lived years, still rehearsing the strange features 
of this strange story which, without explanation, 
would throw discredit on the blameless life of Mr. 
Eddy, and by implication on Mrs. Eddy. 

When the two innocent men were arrested they 
were held in three thousand dollars' bail for examina- 
tion in the municipal court on November 7 for the 
crime of conspiring to kill Daniel Spofford. The 
preliminary hearing was held before Judge May. 
Counsel for the government submitted no argument 
after the hearing of evidence, but called the attention 
of the Court to a chain of circumstances established 
which he believed was strong enough to hold the 
prisoners. Judge May, after deliberation, declared 
it his opinion that the case was a very anomalous 
one, but that he would hold the defendants to appear 
before the Superior Court at the December hearing, 
and he again fixed the amount of bail, which would 
release them from the necessity of going to prison, at 
three thousand dollars each. 

The case was called before the Superior Court in 
December, 1878, and an indictment was found on 
two counts. The first read: **That Edward J. 
Arens and Asa G. Eddy of Boston aforesaid, on the 



A STRANGE CONSPIRACY 249 

28th day of July, in the year of our Lord one thou- 
sand eight hundred and seventy-eight, in Boston 
aforesaid, with force and arms, being persons of evil 
minds and dispositions, did then and there unlaw- 
fully conspire, combine, and agree together feloni- 
ously, wilfully, and of their malice aforethought, to 
procure, hire, incite and solicit one James I. Sar- 
geant, for a certain sum of money, to wit, the sum of 
five hundred dollars, to be paid to said Sargeant by 
them, said Arens and Eddy, feloniously, wilfully, 
and of his said Sargeant's malice aforethought, in 
some way and manner and by some means, instru- 
ments and weapons, to said jurors unknown, one 
Daniel H. Spofford to kill and murder against the 
law, peace and dignity of said Commonwealth." 

The second count charged the prisoners with 
hiring Sargeant ''with force and arms in and upon 
one Daniel H. Spofford to beat, bruise, wound, and 
evil treat agiainst the law, peace, dignity of said 
Commonwealth." 

The Superior Court record reads: "This indict- 
ment was found and returned into Court by the grand 
jurors at the last December term when the said 
Arens and Eddy were severally set at the bar, and 
having the said indictment read to them, they sev- 
erally said thereof that they were not guilty. This 
indictment was thence continued to the present 
January term, and now the District Attorney, Oliver 
Stevens, Esquire, says he will prosecute this indict- 
ment no further, on payment of costs, which are 
thereupon paid. And the said Arens and Eddy are 
thereupon discharged, January 31, 1879." 



250 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

This monstrous charge was thus dismissed with- 
out a trial. The men accused were made to appear 
too insignificant in the world's affairs to warrant a 
full and clear exoneration. They were let go like 
guilty culprits who just escaped the sting of the law's 
lash. Their case is not singular. It is to be deplored 
that the law does not always make the vindication 
of a man, entangled in its meshes through the un- 
warranted suspicions of his enemies or neighbors, 
so clear and emphatic that he may stand innocent in 
reputation, unblemished, and without reproach, 
even as he did before the law laid hands upon him. 

What would have happened had the process of law 
taken its full course? Doubtless the guilty con- 
spirator would have been made to appear. To 
fasten a crime upon an innocent man is in itself a 
hideous crime, and by the very nolle prosse of this 
indictment a conspiracy was shown to exist which, 
had the district attorney of that day felt his whole 
duty, he would have disentangled by thoroughly 
sifting the evidence. He had a crime to fit to an 
individual. He should have gathered all the 
known details, examined every circumstance, how- 
ever slight. He should not have lost a shred or 
tatter. For his work was to piece together a fabric 
of evidence to match a fabric of guilt. The gar- 
ment would have fit but one man and that man the 
criminal. 

In speaking of a district attorney's obligations to 
the people, James W. Osborne, a distinguished 
attorney of New York City, and a former assistant 
in the district attorney's office, says : 



A STRANGE CONSPIRACY 251 

It is as much his duty to take care of the rights of 
one of the people as the rights of all. . . . Resting 
always on the evidence, his feet are fixed in the way 
they should go. ... A human being moves in cer- 
tain well-defined circles, which, joined together, 
make up a complete history of the man's life. When 
you have a section of the arc of any man's history, 
you are pretty well able to follow it to its completion. 
It is like the key to a puzzle around which the broken 
pieces naturally group themselves. There is the 
social life, the religious life, the business life, — will 
these sections of the arc fit together ? Can you com- 
plete the ring.? When you have them all they fall 
into place naturally ; all phases join by an imper- 
ceptible cleavage; the circle is completed by those 
who, w^ith hands joined, encompass the life. You 
see the complex whole. Here is the individual. 
You know the mainspring of his thoughts, his de- 
sires, his habits, his acts. Taken together you have 
his character; you have the man. 

I am not obliged to give you the motive for a 
crime to prove it to have been perpetrated. . . . 
The motives of the human heart are often beyond 
comprehension. But it is the most natural thing in 
the world to ask, " Who could have desired to do 
this deed ? " Therefore a motive is a part of the evi- 
dence, and when you can prove a motive, it becomes 
of the greatest importance. It excludes other possi- 
ble agents, all things being equal, and becomes like 
a finger pointing unswervingly and declaring to the 
shrinking and guilty person, " Thou art the man !" 

As the district attorney of that day did not see fit 
to so handle his evidence, no unswerving finger ever 
pointed out the guilty person. It is therefore not 
possible to make any direct accusation at this late 
day either by surmise or inference, but that the reader 



252 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

may form his own opinion of the nature of the entan- 
glement it is only necessary to tell the main facts of 
the story. 

Mr. Spofford did disappear from Boston in Oc- 
tober, 1878, and was absent from his oflSce two weeks. 
But he disappeared of his own free will and passed 
the fortnight in the home of the man who claimed to 
have been hired to kill him. Mr. Spofford told his 
story in court. He said that a man, introducing 
himself as James Sargeant and describing himself as 
a saloon-keeper, had come to him in the early part 
of the month at his office, 297 Tremont street, 
Boston. This man first asked him if he knew two 
men named Miller and Libbey. Being answered in 
the negative, he said, ''Well, they know you and they 
want to get you put out of the way." 

Then he related that these two men had employed 
him to make away with Spofford. The plan was to 
get Spofford to take a drive on a lonely road, and in 
some remote spot to beat him over the head and kill 
him, then to entangle his body in the reins and cause 
the horse to run away. Having unfolded this mar- 
velous plot, Sargeant acknowledged that he was to 
get $500 for his services. He told him that he had 
already received $75, and meant to try to get the 
rest. But Sargeant declared he had no desire to risk 
his own life in such a business, although apparently 
suffering no qualms from any moral scruple. He 
further stated that he had already been to a state 
detective, HoUis C. Pinkham, and asked him to 
watch the case. 

Mr. Spofford said that he himself immediately 



A STRANGE CONSPIRACY 253 

went to this state detective, and found that Pinkham 
did know of the matter, but apparently was so Uttle 
concerned that he had not even thought it necessary 
to warn Spofford. In fact, the state detective ex- 
pressed himself of the opinion that it was a trumped- 
up story sold by Sargeant to ingratiate himself with 
the police department, for this man, the detective told 
Spofford, was an ex-convict with a bad criminal 
record. 

According to his own story, Mr. Spofford did noth- 
ing further until Sargeant came again to call upon 
him, and when he again beheld the square-set, 
brutal-featured man in his office he was greatly 
alarmed. Sargeant had come to tell him that the 
men, Miller and Libbey, were pressing him to com- 
plete his work; that he had put them off, saying 
their man was already dead ; but they had sent an 
agent to his office and now accused Sargeant of 
playing false with them. 

Spofford conferred again with the state detective 
and on that official's advice disappeared. He chose 
a strange place to conceal himself. Mr. Spofford 
actually took the drive on the lonely road with the 
ex-convict and went with him to his house in Cam- 
bridgeport. Sargeant did not even ask him to pay 
for the hired horse and buggy. Spofford remained 
in the home of the saloon-keeper of Sudbury street 
for two weeks, reading the papers in which he was 
advertised as lost and later as lying in the morgue, 
never venturing to come forth and disclose his where- 
abouts to his anxious friends. This strange pro- 
ceeding would seem to indicate that the depraved 



254 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

man, Sargeant, had been employed by some one as 
an actor in a farce rather than a tragedy. 

At the preUminary hearing in the municipal court 
of Boston there was a strange assemblage of wit- 
nesses brought to swear against the liberty of the 
teacher of moral science, Mr. Eddy, and his student, 
Edward Arens. The two men who had been sum- 
marily arrested and haled to court were astounded 
to behold Daniel Spoflord in such a company. Be- 
sides Sargeant, the saloon-keeper of Sudbury street, 
there were his sister, who kept a house of ill-fame at 
7 Bowker street, and several women inmates of this 
house; also George Collier, Sargeant's accomplice, 
who was under bonds awaiting trial on some charge 
of evil doings of his own ; Jessie MacDonald, a dis- 
charged servant from Mrs. Eddy's household; and 
the detectives employed on the case, Hollis C. Pink- 
ham and Chase Philbrick, were of the company. 

Sargeant, with bold effrontery, professed to iden- 
tify Mr. Eddy and Edward Arens as ''Miller and 
Libbey." He then told a long and vivid story of his 
meetings with them, — how they had come into his 
saloon one morning and told his fortune and then, 
getting into confidential conversation, had asked 
him if he knew any one who could be hired to put a 
man out of the way ; how he had said that he was 
ready himself for any such job, provided there was 
money in it ; and how by arrangement he afterward 
met Mr. Eddy and Mr. Arens on the railroad track 
in East Cambridge on the seventeenth of August at 
five-thirty o'clock in the afternoon. There, he de- 
clared, being somewhat alarmed for himself, he had 



A STRANGE CONSPIRACY 255 

had his friend Collier conceal himself in a freight 
car to hear the details of the wicked conspiracy, and 
he stated how he had also provided himself with a 
revolver in case these desperate characters should 
attack him. 

The presiding judge must have wondered at this 
on studying the calm, sweet eyes of Mr. Eddy, the 
astounded and fearless gaze of Mr. Arens, and then 
the shifty, cruel eyes of Sargeant. But his perplexity 
must have increased on observing the guileless ex- 
pression of Spofford. Collier testified to the truth of 
all Sargeant had said; the women witnesses from 
the Bowker street house declared that Sargeant had 
come there and left with his sister the $75 he had 
received for the murder; the detective, Pinkham, 
stated that he had listened to Sargeant's and Spof- 
ford's stories, that he had seen Sargeant talking to 
Arens on Boston Common, and that he had also seen 
Sargeant approach Mr. Eddy's house and be refused 
admission. The testimony of the servant girl, 
Jessie MacDonald, was that she had heard Mr. Eddy 
say that Spofford kept Mrs. Eddy in agony and he 
would be glad if Spofford were out of the way ; also 
she had heard Mrs. Eddy read a chapter from the 
Bible which says that all wicked people should be 
destroyed. 

Russell H. Conwell was the attorney employed by 
Mrs. Eddy to conduct the defense of her husband 
and her student. The able lawyer had prepared a 
thorough analysis of the apparent facts, but as the 
case never came to trial, the defendants had no hear- 
ing. Mrs. Eddy, however, did not rest after the 



256 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

peremptory dismissal of the case, but remained active 
in the defense of her husband's honor, until every 
charge was privately examined and affidavits secured 
covering every point. In these affidavits she was 
singularly fortunate in receiving the confession of 
the accomplice Collier which promised to clear up the 
entire matter had the nolle prosse not been entered. 
Shortly after the police court hearing, this man wrote 
the following badly spelled letter now among Mrs. 
Eddy's bequeathed papers. 

To Dr. Asa G. Eddy and E. J. Arens, — Feel- 
ing that you have been greatly ingured by faulse 
charges and knowing thair is no truth in my state- 
ments that you attempted to hire Sargeant to kill 
Daniel Spofford, and wishing to retract as far as 
possible all things I have sed to your ingury, I now 
say that thair is no truth whatever in the statement 
that I saw you meet Sargeant at East Cambridge 
or any other place and pay or offer to pay him any 
money; that I never herd a conversation between 
you and Sargeant as testified to by me. Whether 
Daniel Spofford has anything to do with Sargeant 
I do not know. All I know is that the story I told 
on the stand is holy faulse and was got up by 
Sargeant. 

George A. Collier. 

This letter led Mrs. Eddy to inquire out the man 
Collier and persuade him to make an affidavit before 
a justice in Taunton, December 17, 1878. His 
sworn statement is as follows : 

I, George A. Collier, do on oath depose and say 
of my own free will, and in order to expose the man 
who has tried to injure Dr. Asa G. Eddy and Ed- 



A STRANGE CONSPIRACY 257 

ward J. Arens, that Sargeant did induce me by 
great persuasion to go with him to East Cambridge 
from Boston, on or about the 7th day of November 
last, the day of the hearing in the municipal court 
of Boston in the case of Dr. Asa G. Eddy and E. 
J. Arens for attempting to hire said Sargeant to 
kill one Daniel Spofford, and that he showed me 
the place and the cars that he was going to swear to, 
and told me what to say in court, and made me re- 
peat the story until I knew it well, so that I could 
tell the same story that he would, and there was 
not one word of truth in it all. I never heard a con- 
versation in East Cambridge between said Eddy 
and Arens and Sargeant, or saw them pay or offer 
to pay Sargeant any money. 

(Signed) Geo. A. Collier. 

The other affidavits Mrs. Eddy secured were 
statements as to Mr. Eddy's whereabouts on the day 
and at the hour when the ex-convict Sargeant de- 
clared he was conferring with him and giving him 
money on the railroad tracks. The statements 
made before justices and sworn to in all cases were 
that Mr. Eddy was teaching a class in metaphysics 
at the home of David Grey, 43 Clifford street, Boston 
Highlands, from two-thirty o'clock until five-forty- 
five o'clock. The ride in the horse cars of those days 
to East Cambridge from this address would have 
consumed an hour. Mr. Eddy, however, reached his 
home in Lynn about seven-fifteen, p. m., having 
gone from Boston Highlands to the Eastern depot 
and returned to his home on the six-thirtv o'clock 
train. It took him three quarters of an hour to 
reach the Eastern depot from his class in Boston 

17 



258 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Highlands. That he arrived home at the hour stated 
does not rest on Mrs. Eddy's statement alone but is 
attested by Miranda R. Rice under oath, who was 
at 8 Broad street with Mrs. Eddy, waiting to hear 
particulars from Mr. Eddy of his new class. 

As to the detective's testimony that he had seen 
Sargeant at Mr. Eddy's door, Mrs. Eddy wrote at 
the time: 

The only time this man Sargeant came to our 
threshold, to our knowledge, was the day the de- 
tective came to arrest Mr. Eddy ; he preceded the 
detective a few minutes and had just been ordered 
from the door by Mr. Eddy because of his imperti- 
nent remarks, when the detective who had him in 
attendance rang at the front door and himself ad- 
mitted Sargeant into the house. 

Though the state removed the detective, and Sar- 
geant and Collier subsequently went to jail on other 
charges, this case, which was built up on perjuries 
and which collapsed without a hearing, evidently had 
great villainy in it and it should have been made to 
appear. Mrs. Eddy never held Daniel Spofford 
directly responsible for involving her husband in the 
vrfcked conspiracy and causing him to appear at the 
bar of justice in the company of thieves and women 
of ill-repute. At most she believed him blindly ac- 
quiescent in a design which it was never in his heart 
to originate. But she did point out, without naming, 
one who had motive and character for the instiga- 
tion of the dastardly intrigue. 



CHAPTER XVII 

ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 

THE development of machinations usually has 
the result of clearing the atmosphere. The 
hostile plot related in the previous chapter operated 
in this manner. Its workings were like a chemical 
precipitation. Mrs. Eddy's spiritual genius was 
resisting the encroachments of the little group 
around her and preparing to deal with the larger 
needs of a great spiritual movement. 

She foresaw the future prophetically, and that the 
hour had struck for a new movement in the history 
of human rationalism. In less than twenty-five 
years the century would close, and in the opening of 
the twentieth century a new era of mental life 
awaited humanity. Mrs. Eddy realized this; she 
desired to prepare for it, to have in readiness proc- 
esses of amelioration for the miseries of an age more 
or less in the bondage of fear, an operative organiza- 
tion by which humanity might lay hold of the new 
hope which should thrill it. Christian Science must 
go forward, it must be presented to the world beyond 
this little city of Lynn, it must be organized. 

To trace in any great movement, as Lecky the 
historian of rationalism has pointed out, the part 
which belongs to the individual and the part which 
belongs to general causes is an extremely delicate 



260 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

task. Mrs. Eddy had already made an amazing 
gift to her time which might well be deemed a 
sufficient work for any one individual to have per- 
fected. In her treatise, *' Science and Health," she 
had given to the world a new conception of the 
nature of the Supreme Being and His habitual gov- 
ernment of the universe. But having received a 
spiritual revelation, and having formulated this 
revelation into a treatise, Mrs. Eddy now appre- 
hended that there existed a socially diffused sense 
throughout the world that a new age of reasoning 
was to appear with the dawn of the twentieth cen- 
tury. In apprehending this she realized a fresh 
work which was laid upon her, the work of bringing 
into the full glare of the world's thought a spiritual- 
ized realization of the Christain faith. 

What then were the tasks of the hour ? An effec- 
tive church organization was the crying need. 
After that Mrs. Eddy foresaw the necessity of 
establishing a college of instruction which would 
serve as a strong center of propaganda. Her book 
must have a third edition and this edition must be 
effectively circulated. Teachers and practitioners 
must be sent forth. It was a great work which un- 
folded itself in her mind in the very face of the con- 
spiracy to dishonor her in Lynn, directed at her 
through the persons of her husband and student. 

During the summer of 1878 Mrs. Eddy had ven- 
tured to carry her work into Boston. She first gave 
lectures on Sunday afternoons in the Shawmut 
Avenue Baptist church, and later lectured in the 
Parker Fraternity building on Appleton street. 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 261 

This latter place was a hall for public meetings 
which seated from three hundred to four hundred 
persons. At first her lectures drew but a few people, 
but very shortly the audiences grew larger and she 
was soon able to fill the hall. 

The Boston audiences were a revelation to Mrs. 
Eddy. The listeners attracted to the new doctrine 
were distinctly of a cultivated world. While her 
long labors in Lynn had unfolded her own powers, 
they had attracted to her only disciples whose 
intellectual limitations caused them to be more or 
less disappointing. They had been able to follow 
her only a certain distance in philosophic specula- 
tion, whereupon a reaction of some sort of stubborn- 
ness would ensue, a stubbornness impossible to cope 
with. In Boston a new quality of naind responded to 
her. Those first Boston audiences revealed to her 
that the foundation of her church was to be laid in 
the city of liberal culture. 

Though Lynn was stubborn, the founder of 
Christian Science was not yet done with her efforts 
there. From that base her future activity was to be 
projected. The last two years of her residence in 
Lynn were not without the compensation of blessed- 
ness and fruition. A few students who remained 
loyal to the work were taught in Broad street, and 
when she went forth they followed her to Boston and 
became her aids. She could not personally do 
everything that lay before her; she must direct 
them to tasks by the faithful performance of which 
the struggles of the early church might have been 
greatly minimized. 



262 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Mr. and Mrs. Eddy lived a tranquil domestic 
existence. Their union was based on affection and 
mutual esteem. Their housekeeping was ideally 
simple and harmonious. Perfect orderliness, ex- 
quisite cleanliness, and gentle social courtesy were 
Mrs. Eddy's marked characteristics, while calm, 
upright, steadfast, a continual support and protec- 
tion to his wife, Mr. Eddy has been likened to the 
late President McKinley in his individual traits. 

A vivid idea of the interior of that home may be 
gained, which is pleasing to remember when one is 
tempted to think of it only as a storm-buffeted 
center, its inmates scandalized, ridiculed, and out- 
raged by hirelings and plotters determined to mo- 
lest its peace. The exterior of the little house with 
its balconied portico, its flowers and shade trees has 
already been described. The first-floor rooms, so 
long occupied for classes and lectures, were now con- 
verted into a charming little parlor and study. 
Mrs. Eddy received her callers in the first room and 
did her literary work in the second. 

The walls of the reception-room were finished in 
plain gray paper with gold cornices. The windows 
were hung with white lace draperies, looped back 
over high gilt arms. A crimson carpet covered the 
floor and the furniture was of black walnut. The 
tables always held vases of flowers, for Mrs. Eddy 
was devoted to the cultivation of plants in summer 
and winter, and her success with them was an evi- 
dence of her continual love of the beautiful. It is 
impossible to impart in such meager details the ver- 
itable charm of Mrs. Eddy's home, a charm which 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 263 

has existed in every home she has made ; but those 
who have described the room speak of it as a place 
where one breathed the atmosphere of graciousness 
expressed in rare simpHcity. 

In this room Mrs. Clara Choate was received by 
Mrs. Eddy in January, 1878. She was one of 
Mrs. Eddy's devoted students during that troublous 
time, and her description of the home life shows 
that Mrs. Eddy was not overwhelmed by her diffi- 
culties, but calm and resolute. She also tells of a 
certain buoyancy and gaiety which at times char- 
acterized Mrs. Eddy, a gaiety which caused her to 
rally her students to cheerfulness and mirth, as she 
later rallied the lawyers and journalists who as- 
sembled with awe-struck countenances to catechize 
her on the rationality of her mind. 

Mrs. Choate, whose husband belonged to the 
family which has given so many distinguished pub- 
heists to the American nation, and who was herself 
related to the Blaines, was an early reader of 
** Science and Health." She secured a copy of the 
first edition and read it with wonder and delight, 
but she did not immediately become a Christian 
Scientist. Having sent from her home in Salem for 
a practitioner and having been greatly benefited in 
health, she determined to meet the author of the 
book and study its doctrine at first hand. She ac- 
cordingly came to Lynn. When she was shown 
into the little gray-walled parlor, she looked about 
in some wonderment. Expecting to find austerity, 
she was surprised to behold harmony, beauty, and 
sunshine. Yet this presently appeared the natural 



264 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

environment for the religion of love. Her meeting 
with Mrs. Eddy was typical of many such meetings. 
She describes it thus: 

When the double doors leading into the back 
parlor were at last opened and I saw her standing 
there, I was seized with a sense of great gladness 
which seemed to be imparted by her radiant ex- 
pression. Mrs. Eddy instantly healed me of every 
ill that had claimed me. I cannot describe the ex- 
hilaration that rushed through my whole being. 
I was uplifted and felt a sense of buoyancy unspeak- 
able. It was as though a consciousness of purity 
pervaded Mrs. Eddy and from her imparted itself 
to me, whereupon I felt as if treading on air to the 
rhythmic flow of music. 

Mrs. Eddy was over fifty years old, but Mrs. 
Choate describes her as a graceful figure in a violet- 
colored house-gown finished with lace at the throat 
and wrists. Her hands were small and expressive, 
her hair rippled about her face and was dressed 
high at the back of her well-shaped head. Her 
cheeks glowed with color and her eyes were clear, 
unwavering, like wells of light. 

Mrs. Choate was not much over twenty, a young 
wife and mother who had never been away from 
home before. Mrs. Eddy called her ** child," and 
took her into that circle of friends which closely sur- 
rounded her. Later Mrs. Choate and her husband 
came to live across the street. She was much with 
Mrs. Eddy in and out of the house, and her happy 
spirits often relieved the strain of Mrs. Eddy's ar- 
duous days. It was in May that they came to reside 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 265 

in Lynn. Her husband, George D. Choate, entered 
a class during that month, his opposition to Chris- 
tian Science having been swept away by his wife's 
marvelous heahng and her enthusiasm for the 
cause of the new reUgious movement. They were 
later to aid in the establishment of college and 
church. 

Other students who now came into the work were 
Miss JuUa Bartlett, Mrs. Ellen J. Clark, Arthur 
True Bus well, and James Ackland. Some of them 
lodged in the Broad street house, occupying the 
several chambers of the second floor, but not living 
at the family table. Many incidents of the daily 
life of Mrs. Eddy were related by the students which 
show her never to have forgotten those sterling 
habits gained from the guidance of a mother re- 
markable throughout her life for housewifely virtue. 

Though occasionally entertaining her students at 
table and serving them with the food she prepared 
with her own hands, she was ever the teacher, writer, 
lecturer, organizer. If she sometimes walked on a 
pleasant evening with them to her favorite retreat 
on the beach, she never relaxed into the idleness of 
mere diversion. Spiritual realization was the con- 
stant theme of her conversation. Those around her 
had found health, harmony, joy in the science of 
being which she had taught them ; they must help 
her to spread this gospel. The world was hungering 
for this truth ; it must be fed. The world was sick 
in sin and error; it must be healed and taught 
truth. None of the students found in her a com- 
panion in idle thought and self-seeking. Sometimes 



^66 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

they complained of it and would have had her 
merrier, more diverted, less contained, and full of 
far-seeing plans. Because of her persistently main- 
tained superiority to these human instincts some of 
the students were eventually estranged. 

Organization was her word for the hour. It had 
become in her mind an imperative duty to organize 
the Christian Science church. A tentative organi- 
zation had been made. In 1875, it will be remem- 
bered, the little band of eight students had pledged 
themselves to raise money for church services, but 
their ranks had been broken by rebellion and that 
organization was disbanded. On July 4, 1876, the 
Christian Scientist Association was formed to hold 
the students together for work and occasional meet- 
ings. This proved effectual for its purpose for a 
number of years. Mrs. Eddy now urged the incorpo- 
ration of a church society. This was accomplished in 
August, 1879, and a charter, issued August 23, was 
received from the state. The articles of incorpora- 
tion stated that the Church of Christ, Scientist, was 
to be established in Boston, thus fulfilling Mrs. 
Eddy's prophetic vision. 

The members of the new church were twenty-six 
in number and the organization was made at the 
home of Mrs. Margaret Dunshee in Charlestown. 
The first officers and directors were: Mrs. Eddy, 
president; Margaret Dunshee, treasurer; Edward 
A. Orne, Miss Dorcas Rawson, Arthur True Bus- 
well, James Ackland, Margaret J. Foley, Mary 
Ruddock, Oren Carr, directors. They elected and 
ordained Mrs. Eddy pastor after the Congregational 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 267 

method of New England. This is not the basis of 
the present Christian Science church, but the organi- 
zation continued in existence for about thirteen years 
when the church was reorganized. 

For a year and a half the church carried on public 
meetings in the parlors of the various members. 
Not until December, 1883, were regular services 
held in a public hall. The first public meetings of 
the church were convened at Hawthorne Hall on 
Park street, Boston, and that hall, which has since 
been demolished, was the real cradle of the church. 
Mrs. Eddy was the active pastor from the date of 
organization and regularly preached a Sunday 
morning sermon. Even before the church regularly 
engaged a hall in Boston she preached at Parker 
Fraternity building, making the trip to Boston from 
her Lynn home for this purpose. On the morning 
of each Sabbath her students would seek her and 
find her sitting with closed eyes, deep in meditation. 
Urging her to eat, to dress, to make preparation for 
the delivering of her sermon, they expressed much 
love in solicitation. She would, however, send them 
away, demanding silence and time for thought. On 
the railway train from Lynn to Boston the students 
would join her. She was always faultlessly dressed 
and usually in a mood of spiritual gaiety. 

In the pulpit there was never a trace of fatigue. 
It has been said that her sermons were exhilarating 
and moved her audiences to emotional exaltation; 
yet in the same breath critics add that she brought 
forward only the healing phase of her teaching, 
seldom touching on religious questions, such as 



268 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

repentance, humility, or prayer. They say that she 
was cold or indifferent to such topics. These two 
statements are not consistent, nor is the latter 
founded on fact. Many of her sermons are included 
in *' Miscellaneous Writings" and are essentially 
spiritual. Prayer, Mrs. Eddy teaches, is the reali- 
zation of the omnipresence of God and the aspira- 
tion for purity. Silent realization has always been 
an opening ceremony of her church. As for re- 
pentance, she taught the very essence of it, which 
she declared was the forsaking of sin. 

The seeds of rebellion were in the first church 
organization. The reactionary effect observable in 
many of the early students was to repeat itself. 
Kennedy had persisted in the use of mesmerism, 
Spofford endeavored to wrest the leadership from 
the church's founder, now Arens conceived the idea 
of writing a book on the topics he had studied, and 
for that purpose stole bodily from Mrs. Eddy's 
writings. He preceded her to Boston and opened 
an office not far from where Kennedy had estab- 
lished himself. Rebellion now broke forth with vio- 
lence in a group of students who walked out in a 
body. They prepared the following statement as 
their reason for so doing: 

We, the undersigned, while we acknowledge and 
appreciate the understanding of Truth imparted 
to us by our teacher, Mrs. Mary B. G. Eddy, led 
by Divine Intelligence to perceive with sorrow that 
departure from the straight and narrow road (which 
alone leads to growth m Christlike virtues) made 
manifest by frequent ebullitions of temper, love of 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 269 

money, and the appearance of hypocrisy, cannot 
longer submit to such leadership. Therefore, with- 
out aught of hatred, revenge, or petty spite in our 
hearts, from a sense of duty alone, to her, the cause, 
and ourselves, do most respectfully withdraw our 
names from the Christian Science Association and 
Church of Christ, Scientist. 

This document, dated October 21, 1881, was 
signed by eight protesting students whose names 
need not be commemorated here. Their statement 
is interesting because of a state of consciousness 
presented to view. 

Examining the charges summed up in this state- 
ment, it can readily be seen how the fresh impetus 
at work in Mrs. Eddy's mind had wrought upon 
these narrow- visioned artisans. The Boston lec- 
tures had seemed to take the work beyond their 
sphere; the influx of new students from beyond 
Lynn had detached the teacher's attention from 
their immediate concerns; the necessity to provide 
funds for propaganda had put an end to the easy- 
going communistic methods of the primitive move- 
ment; and above all, Mrs. Eddy had commanded 
an implicit obedience from her later students and 
they had yielded it. Mr. Choate went to Port- 
land where she sent him to teach, heal, and lecture, 
Mr. Buswell went on a similar errand to Cincinnati, 
Joseph Morton was sent to New York. These were 
the signs of a burgeoning of the work which alarmed 
the first students, and some of them retaliated, as 
has been shown, by malediction. 

Had Mrs. Eddy been the virago and the avari- 
cious hypocrite that they in their suspicion and 



270 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

jealousy brought themselves to believe, her work 
would have died in Lynn, and the greatest religious 
movement of modern times would never have been 
known. But instead of receiving its death blow 
from the carefully worded epistle of apology, it was 
re-baptized and confirmed, and the young church 
was in reality purged of the worst elements of oppo- 
sition and encumbrances of ineff ectuality which had 
hampered its growth. 

The apology was read at a meeting at the home 
of Mrs. F. A. Daman of Lynn, in whose parlor the 
Christian Science church convened in the summer 
and fall of 1880. Mrs. Eddy, who had attended 
the meeting unaware of the agitation brewing seces- 
sion, was entirely unprepared for the epistle. Grieved 
and astounded, she addressed the meeting in reply. 
She declared that these deluded students were the 
victims of that worldly influence which perverted 
the sense of spiritual things, an influence which the 
teaching of Christian Science almost invariably 
aroused in its first encounter with worldly desires, 
but not to be expected from those who had resisted 
flippancy and ridicule for years. She pleaded with 
them to rid themselves of such thoughts, to rise 
above personal rivalries, jealousies, and ambitions, 
to purge their minds of the critical spirit which led 
them to misconceive her own life and work, and to 
reaflSrm the high purpose to which they had been 
called, namely the founding of the church. 

Finding that her appeal did not meet with the re- 
sponse which would have shown the rebellious stud- 
ents merely the victims of a temporary delusion. 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 271 

but beginning to realize that they were incapable 
of the work to which she urged them, she made a 
masterly decision. She took from them the right to 
resign by expelling them from the ranks of her 
church, thereby preserving the church's charter. 
She took one week for this sweeping move, having 
warned them directly after the reading of the paper 
that they were liable to expulsion. They failed to 
comprehend her meaning. She was, however, about 
to assert that power and strength which has been 
hers in all subsequent emergencies in her church, 
the force and foresight which has caused the world 
to acknowledge her a leader preeminent in efficiency 
and masterly direction. She was determined to pre- 
serve her church against such internecine strife 
by asserting its substantial integrity and its power 
to rid itself of rebels. 

Her act had a most salutary effect on the loyal 
students. Dismay had at first threatened them. 
They now rallied around her and in a few weeks 
published in the Lynn papers a reply to the seceders 
in the form of resolutions. In these they expressed 
their heartfelt love and gratitude for their teacher 
and acknowledged her as their leader in Christian 
Science, saying that she alone was able to protect 
the work she had founded; they denounced the 
charges brought against her as utterly false and de- 
plored the wickedness of those who could abuse one 
who had befriended them in their need and rebuked 
them with honesty. They expressed their admira- 
tion and reverence for her Christlike example of 
meekness and charity, and declared that in future 



272 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

they would more faithfully obey her instructions 
in appreciation of her Christian leadership. 

Thus Mrs. Eddy preserved the organization of 
her church and she had already laid the foundation 
for the college of instruction she purposed to estab- 
lish in Boston. The Massachusetts Metaphysical 
College was the name she selected for that institu- 
tion, which she organized in January, 1881, six 
months before the struggle in her church. She 
drew up an agreement with six students to teach 
pathology, ontology, therapeutics, moral science, 
metaphysics, and their application to the treatment 
of diseases, and for these purposes the college or- 
ganization received a charter from the Common- 
wealth of Massachusetts. Mrs. Eddy was named 
president and the six students directors. 

To thoroughly understand the force of Mrs. 
Eddy's character it is only necessary to view the 
difficulties of the situation in which she was placed 
when she perfected these two basic organizations. 
She had been so pressed for money that she had 
been obliged to go upon her knees and cleanse her 
own floors, she had had to make over the garments 
she wore to present a faultless appearance of good 
taste to the public ; she had protected her husband 
by her own energetic conference with counsel and 
witnesses in a conspiracy to charge him with mur- 
der ; she had seen her oldest and most trusted women 
students plot against her and desert her; she had 
lectured and taught, and sent out missionaries to 
the North, South, and West; she had sent Mrs. 
Choate as a precursor to Boston. 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 273 

In the midst of such activities the third edition of 
"Science and Health" had been prepared and was 
in press. It was issued in 1881, and contained those 
chapters whose mere captions arouse to-day in her 
thousands of followers the enthusiasm of faith. 
Footsteps of Truth, Science of Being, Recapitula- 
tion, Creation, Prayer, and Atonement were in its 
contents. This edition retrieved the blundering 
workmanship of the second edition and is in some 
respects' a clearer statement of her doctrine than she 
had yet made. With such comprehensive and effec- 
tive efforts for the future, she prepared to leave 
Lynn and to step into the full current of the life of 
her times in the city conceded to have the greatest 
culture in America. 

Thus very shortly after the publication of the 
resolutions by her faithful students in February, 
1882, the furnishings of the Broad street house were 
packed and stored until determinate arrangements 
should be made for a future residence. On the last 
evening before leaving Lynn a meeting of the church 
was held in the denuded rooms, the members seated 
on packing-cases for their final deliberations. At 
this meeting Miss Julia Bartlett was received into 
the church. She later performed an important work 
of teaching and healing in New Hampshire. Miss 
Bartlett was probably the first member of the Chris- 
tian Science church who remained unfaltering in 
loyalty to the cause. She resides to-day in St. 
Botolph street, Boston. She has been a remarkably 
successful healer and it was through her work in 

18 



274 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

New Hampshire that many students, among them 
the family of Ira O. Knapp, were interested in 
Christian Science. Mr. Knapp became a director 
of the Mother Church. 

Before settUng in Boston Mr. and Mrs. Eddy 
made a visit to Washington and on this occasion 
Mr. Eddy performed a service of inestimable value 
for his wife and the cause to which she was dedi- 
cated. This was the thorough investigation of the 
subject of copyrights. Through the labors of her 
husband, Mrs. Eddy was thoroughly enlightened 
on this most important matter, important to the 
security of all her subsequent work. It has been 
remarked again and again, sometimes critically by 
those who saw only the worldly advantage of pro- 
tection to property, again admiringly by those who 
perceive that every act of Mrs. Eddy's business 
career was established in sanity and adherence to 
the law, that her copyrights have been iron-clad 
and infrangible and never neglected. Perhaps to 
her followers alone the real value of her copyrights 
is apparent. Their value to Christian Scientists is 
that they preserve Christian Science unadulterated 
for the years to come. 

The necessity for investigation into this highly 
abstruse and perplexing subject was made apparent 
by the perfidy of the student, Edward J. Arens. He, 
some time in 1880, became imbued with the idea of 
metaphysical authorship, doubtless planning to turn 
his energies to the same purpose that had been 
threatened by a former student, namely, to wrest 
the leadership of Christian Science from its dis- 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 275 

coverer. He issued a pamphlet entitled *' Theology, 
or the Understanding of God as Applied to Healing 
the Sick." 

The preface to the third edition of "Science and 
Health" was written by Asa G. Eddy, and in writing 
it Mr. Eddy dealt vigorously with Arens. He states 
that while Arens says he has made use in his pam- 
phlet of *'some thoughts contained in a work by 
Eddy," he for over thirty pages repeats Mrs. Eddy's 
words verbatim, having copied them without quota- 
tion and filching, among other passages of the book, 
the very heart of Christian Science. This is the 
scientific statement of being which Mr. Eddy calls 
*'that immortal sentence," and which reads : ** There 
is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. 
All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for 
God is All in all. Spirit is immortal Truth ; matter 
is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; 
matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, 
and man is His image and likeness ; hence, man is 
spiritual and not material." ^ 

Mr. Eddy very tersely says in his arraignment of 
Arens: "If simply writing at the commencement 
of a work, *I have made use of some thoughts 
of Emerson' gave one the right to walk over the 
author's copyrights and use page after page of his 
writings verbatim, publishing them as his own, any 
fool might aspire to authorship and any villain be- 
come the expounder of truth." He then makes this 
statement concerning his wife: "Mrs. Eddy's 
works are the outgrowth of her life. I never knew 
so unselfish an individual, or one so tireless in what 

* "Science and Health," p. 468. 



276 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

she considers her duty." As for Arens, he dismisses 
him with this emphatic characterization: "It would 
require ages and God's mercy to make the ignorant 
hypocrite who pubUshed that pamphlet originate 
its contents. His pratings are colored by his char- 
acter; they cannot impart the hue of ethics, but 
leave his own impress on what he takes." 

The federal courts subsequently enjoined Arens 
not to publish or circulate his pamphlet, and all 
printed copies were destroyed by order of the court. 
This did not happen until after Mr. Eddy's death, 
or until process of law dealt with Arens, as shall 
be presently recounted. But Arens' perfidy wrought 
upon Mr. Eddy seriously. He suffered real anguish 
of mind from it, being far more disturbed than was 
his wife, for he regarded it as a culmination of bitter 
attacks upon her work and an exhibition of mali- 
cious animal magnetism. 

Speaking in a purely human sense, Mr. Eddy re- 
sented the unfaithfulness of one whom Mrs. Eddy 
had taught and trusted very largely with her busi- 
ness affairs. He felt it keenly that one who had gone 
through such an experience of unjust prosecution as 
Arens had suffered jointly with him in the Lynn 
conspiracy and who had been defended by his wife's 
faithful energies should now array himself against 
the cause. Arens was living in Boston not far from 
the house on Columbus avenue which Mr. and Mrs. 
Eddy leased in the spring of 1882. He was teaching 
and preaching adversely to Christian Science, and 
as yet had not been restrained from circulating his 
pirated writings. 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 277 

Whether or not it was as a result of sorrow en- 
gendered in his heart or distress arising in his mind 
over the continual harassment brought by attacks 
on the work to which he had given his energies, Mr. 
Eddy visibly failed in health. His heart became 
weak ; he lost his appetite and could not sleep. He 
complained of a sense of suffocation, an oppression 
of the suggestion of evil. Mrs. Eddy summoned Dr. 
Rufus K. Noyes, a graduate of the Dartmouth 
Medical School, who was then a resident of Lynn, 
and many years a distinguished Boston physician. 
He was known to Mrs. Eddy as a young man of 
brilliant achievements for his years, and had re- 
cently served as a resident physician in the city 
hospital. 

She summoned Dr. Noyes to diagnose her hus- 
band's case, for much perplexity had arisen among 
her students concerning his condition. She told 
the physician she believed her husband was suffer- 
ing from the suggestion of arsenical poisoning, be- 
cause, to her, the symptoms appeared to be those 
of actual or material arsenic. Some of her house- 
hold had believed Mr. Eddy was suffering from 
cancer of the stomach. Dr. Noyes diagnosed the 
case as disease of the heart. He advised rest and 
tonic, digitalis and strychnia. But Dr. Noyes be- 
lieves that his prescription was not adhered to and 
no medicines were administered. 

It may be asked why Mrs. Eddy called a regular 
physician, especially if she did not intend to ad- 
minister the medicines prescribed. A great deal of 
excitement was aroused by her husband's illness. 



278 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

both among her friends and her critics. She de- 
sired a diagnosis at which no man or woman could 
cavil. She did not believe that her husband had 
cancer, or that his heart was defective, but that he 
was suffering from suggestion. She believed that 
a practising physician, trained in natural science, 
would bear her out in this and thus clinch her own 
diagnosis. But she was ahead of her age. Ex- 
perimental psychology had not then made the im- 
portant discovery that the deadliest poison is a 
secretion engendered by the working of hatred.^ 

That Mr. Eddy suffered greatly, and that Mrs. 
Eddy suffered with him in her deep affection and 
sympathy is vouched for. A student who came 

^ The Washington Herald in August, 1907, printed an article descriptive 
of the experiments of Professor Ehner Gates in his laboratory of psychology 
and psychurgy. The article was also printed in the Chicago Tribune. It 
states: "Professor Gates has shown the causative character of thinking in a 
long series of most comprehensive and convincing experiments. He found that 
change of mental state changed the chemical character of the perspiration. 
When treated with the same chemical re-agent the perspiration of an angry 
man showed one color, that of a man in grief another, and so on through the 
list of emotions, each mental state persistently exhibiting its own peculiar 
result every time the experiment was repeated. 

"When the breath of Professor Gates' subject was passed through a tube 
cooled with ice, so as to condense its volatile constituents, a colorless liquid 
resulted. . . . He made his subject angry and five minutes afterwards a sedi- 
ment appeared in the tube which indicated the presence there of a new sub- 
stance produced by the changed physical action caused by a change of the 
mental emotion. Anger gave a brownish substance, sorrow gray, etc. . . . 
Each kind of thinking produced its own pecuhar substance which the system 
was trying to expel. . . . Professor Gates undertook to discover the character 
of the substances which he obtained by condensation of the breath of his sub- 
jects. The brownish precipitate from the breath of any persons administered 
either to men or to animals caused stimulation and excitement of the nerves. 
Another substance, produced by another kind of discordant thinking, when 
injected into the veins of a guinea pig or a hen, killed it outright. . . . The 
deadhest poison known to science is hate. Professor Elmer Gates is the man 
who has found it out, . . . who has demonstrated it." 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 279 

and went in Mrs. Eddy's house with the freedom 
of a sister has drawn a picture of the hour of sorrow 
which is tenderly beautiful. Mrs. Eddy had the 
work of her church to carry on; her room was 
Uttered with books and papers ; there was no order 
there at this time, for she could give but snatches 
of attention to affairs while her husband was lying 
stricken in an adjoining room. He breathed with 
agony and with physical sobs. Sitting by him, 
Mrs. Eddy would lay her face close to his and 
murmur, ''Gilbert, Gilbert, do not suffer so," and 
under her silent treatment he would be relieved for 
a time and sleep. 

But Mr. Eddy observed that he distracted his wife 
from her pressing business and heroically declared, 
"My sickness is nothing; I can handle this belief 
myself." He steadfastly declared he was coping 
with the attack and urged his wife to leave him. 
When she had reluctantly done so, he experienced 
a depression, but refused to have her called to re- 
lieve him. Just before his death he cried out, '' Only 
rid me of this suggestion of poison and I will re- 
cover." Mrs. Eddy had retired but was called ; her 
husband expired, however, before she could reach 
him. This was before daybreak on Saturday morn- 
ing, June 3, 1882. 

If there is any truth in the old saying, died of a 
broken heart, it might well be applied to the death 
of this good man. Because of the persistent rumors 
concerning his illness and death, rumors that he 
had had a cancer, that he had been taking arsenic, 
and even that some one had actually given him a 



280 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

dose of poison, Mrs. Eddy again called Dr. Noyes, 
this time to perform an autopsy. Dr. Noyes ex- 
posed the heart and exhibited the physical organ to 
Mrs. Eddy, pointing out the valvular difficulty. He 
found no traces of arsenic whatsoever, no cancer or 
other disease of the stomach. 

In so far then as the surgeon's knife can prove 
anything, Mr. Eddy died of heart exhaustion. But 
the surgeon's knife cannot find everything; it can- 
not find love, for example, in the noblest heart that 
ever beat ; nor can it find hate in the crudest. Who 
can with authority deny Mrs. Eddy's statement that 
poison mentally administered killed her husband? 
''Not material poison," she declared, ''but mes- 
meric poison." 

It may not be the term that natural science would 
admit, but natural science acknowledges readily 
that grief, disappointment, and profound depres- 
sion will cause heart failure. Remembering the 
wicked charge of wilful attempt to murder falsely 
brought against Mr. Eddy, and the cruel assaults 
upon his wife, whom he loved and cherished, by 
the seceding students, and the attempt at a veritable 
overthrow of the work to which he was devoted, it 
may be very easily understood why Mrs. Eddy de- 
clared that her husband was mentally poisoned, and 
in that statement doubtless she was scientifically 
exact. It should be remembered that this happened 
in the early days of Christian Science practise and 
at a time when Mrs. Eddy was just awakening to 
the pernicious mental influence of hate. Christian 
Science presents a doctrine of love which antidotes 



ORGANIZATION OF CHURCH AND COLLEGE 281 

hate. ''Divine Love always has met and always 
will meet every human need," says Mrs. Eddy in 
"Science and Health." 

Mr. Eddy's remains were taken to Tilton, New 
Hampshire, and interred in the cemetery on the 
banks of the Merrimac River in the shadow of the 
beautiful foot-hills of the White Mountains. A 
granite shaft marks the spot. Mr. George D. Choate 
accompanied the body and Mrs. Clara Choate re- 
mained with Mrs. Eddy who arranged for her the 
topics of the eulogy which Mrs. Choate delivered 
on Mr. Eddy in Hawthorne Hall. Her subject 
was: ''Blessed are they who die in the Lord; for 
their works shall follow them." 



CHAPTER XVIII 

FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 

WITH the death of her husband Mrs. Eddy suf- 
fered a severe blow, having lost a devoted 
co-worker and friend in whom she had found 
great satisfaction through a most exalted human 
relationship. A new chapter now opens in her life, 
a period of worldly activity in the cause of religion. 
She becomes the founder and the organizer, the 
teacher and promulgator of Christian Science and 
in this character transcends her former self as the 
kind hostess and sympathetic friend. Girlhood, 
widowhood, wifehood vanish, are swallowed up, in 
a complex but unified individuality which reveals 
her preeminently as the founder, Mary Baker Eddy. 

The most cynical critics of this illustrious woman 
have made the comment that she is never so com- 
manding a figure as when she bestirs herself in the 
face of calamity. Although these critics have es- 
sayed to portray her in the sad moment of her 
bereavement as a woman prostrated, hysterical, and 
exhausted, afraid to go out of her house and afraid 
to stay in it when in the quiet upper chamber the 
mortal remains of her husband lay draped for the 
grave, the events of those days will not harmonize 
with such a characterization. 

Mrs. Eddy was self -controlled in the face of her 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 283 

bereavement, so calm that she in every way con- 
formed to the usages and standards of the world, 
and yet bore herself with the composure of one act- 
ing in sublime faith. As there had been unwarranted 
rumors concerning Mr. Eddy's illness and death, 
she had permitted an autopsy. That grim function 
completed and the verdict of heart failure rendered, 
Mrs. Eddy summoned such friends and students as 
she could rely upon. Mr. Eddy's interment was 
lovingly arranged for and carried out and her tribute 
to his life and work was pronounced for her in a 
public service. She then took steps to withdraw from 
active work through the summer and rearranged her 
plans for a campaign of several years, looking to the 
establishment of the church on a firm foundation. 

Before leaving Boston for a summer's rest, a period 
which the world would call a time of mourning, but 
which to Mrs. Eddy was a spiritual retreat for the 
restatement in her consciousness of the deep things 
of love and truth and immortality, she gathered 
together her students and gave to each his work. 
She received representatives from the press and 
granted an interview in which she refuted the pop- 
ular notion that consternation had seized her with 
the swing of death's pinion. She declared with 
superb affirmation, "I believe in God's supremacy 
over error, and this gives me peace." 

Mr. Arthur True Buswell, the student whom Mrs. 
Eddy had sent to Cincinnati to teach and practise, 
came to her house in Columbus avenue, summoned 
by telegram to join in an advisory council. He sug- 
gested that she make use of his home in Barton, in 



284 THE LIFE OF IVIARY BAKER EDDY 

the Northern part of Vermont, for her vacation, 
and she accepted. Her house in Boston she left in 
the care of her students, Miss JuUa Bartlett and 
Mrs. Abbie Whiting. She took with her as com- 
panion for the summer Miss AUce Sibley, a young 
woman of great beauty of character who was much 
endeared to her. 

Although she had exhibited heroic qualities of 
energy and fortitude, neglecting nothing of direction 
and command before leaving Boston, she showed 
on the journey traces of nervous exhaustion and at 
times the hysteria of grief threatened to overwhelm 
her. With her wonderful faith she battled against 
the thoughts which assailed her, holding herself to 
her great purpose with the energy of a saint. Mr. 
Buswell relates that her great struggle was known 
to his household, but that she carried it through 
alone, though they often watched outside her door. 
After a night of agony she would emerge from her 
struggle with a radiant face and luminous eyes, and 
they would hesitate to speak to her for fear of dis- 
turbing the peace which enveloped her. 

However great the struggle of the night, day found 
her ready to discuss the work of the movement. 
During the brief summer she constantly considered 
the situation in Boston. She planned the reorgani- 
zation of her household, the reopening of the college, 
discussed what new students should be admitted to 
the fall classes, arranged for lectures to be given by 
the old students, and above all discussed the found- 
ing of a periodical which she resolved to call the 
Journal of Christian Science. 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 285 

In such practical matters Mr. Buswell could help 
her, and together they discussed the proposed new 
organ of the propaganda. She decided to make 
Mr. Buswell the first assistant editor and business 
manager. This subject required a great deal of 
thoughtful consideration and the vital needs of its 
conception focussed and controlled her thought, 
leaving her grief to yield more gently to the minis- 
tration of divine agency. 

An almost equally important matter for considera- 
tion was the future conduct of her household which 
she purposed establishing on an institutional basis. 
She turned over in her mind the qualifications of 
students in order to settle upon one in whom she 
could repose the trust of steward of her household. 
One day she requested Mr. Buswell to telegraph to 
Calvin A. Frye of Lawrence, Massachusetts. Di- 
rectly afterward she resolved to return to Boston, 
and what had been in many respects a pleasant 
summer interval of inspirational drives and walks 
shared with Alice Sibley and of practical confer- 
ences with Mr. Buswell now came to an end. 

Hastening to answer Mrs. Eddy's summons, Mr. 
Frye met the returning party at Plymouth, New 
Hampshire. Mrs. Eddy requested him to make the 
journey to Boston with them and on the train she 
unfolded in part her plans and her needs of efficient 
stewardship. She put to him searching questions 
concerning his own life and his willingness to serve 
the cause of Christian Science. To all her questions 
he replied sincerely and declared himself ready to 
perform whatever lay in his power. Mrs. Eddy did 



286 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

not tell him at the time what she later revealed 
to him, that Mr. Eddy had gone to Lawrence some 
months before his death and inquired into Mr. 
Frye's record wdth the possible idea of summoning 
him to this very position. He had anticipated his 
wife's need. The Rev. Joshua Coit, Mr. Frye's 
pastor in the Congregational church, had so spoken 
of Mr. Frye that Mr. Eddy recommended him to 
his wife as a man to be trusted with her intimate 
affairs. 

Mr. Frye entered Mrs. Eddy's household on her 
arrival in Boston and from that hour remained 
faithful in her service. There is no term that will 
cover the manifold duties which devolved upon 
him. He was usually spoken of as her private secre- 
tary because of the enormous amount of corre- 
spondence of which he relieved her. He was her 
bookkeeper, her purchasing agents and her personal 
representative on many important occasions. Those 
who would make a reproach of his faithfulness have 
referred to him as her butler and her coachman. 
Indeed, he did not hesitate to occupy the box of 
her carriage to guard her on her daily drives. 

But a few words concerning Mr. Frye's history 
will correct the impression that the titles of servitude 
were warranted by his natural social status. The 
Frye family is an old one, as American ancestry 
goes. His grandfather and great-grandfather fought 
in the wars of 1812 and the Revolution. Frye vil- 
lage, now a part of Andover, Massachusetts, was 
named for his grandfather, who had a prosperous 
milling business there in grist and lumber. His 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 287 

father, Enoch Frye, prepared for college in Phillips 
Andover Academy and graduated from Harvard in 
the class made famous by Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
Calvin Frye received his education in the district 
school of Frye village. His father was in moderate 
circumstances, having contracted a lameness which 
unfitted him for active life work, and it was not pos- 
sible for him to educate his sons as he had himself 
been educated. There were five children of Cal- 
vin's generation, a brother who died in infancy, one 
who lost his life in the Civil War, another who was 
a business man of Boston, and a sister who with 
Calvin became a Christian Scientist. 

Calvin married at the age of twenty-eight, but his 
wife lived only a year after the marriage and they 
had no children. He thereafter lived at home with 
his parents and sister in Lawrence, working in the 
Natick mill as an overseer of machinery. His family 
all belonged to the Congregational church, his 
father and grandfather before him having been 
members of the choir. For fifteen years Calvin was 
an active church-worker, librarian, class leader, and 
usher. He and his sister Lydia became interested 
in Christian Science at the same time through Mrs. 
Clara Choate who carried the new teaching into 
Lawrence. She healed a relative of the Frye family 
and was then invited to their home. 

Mr. Frye's mother had suffered from mental de- 
rangement for many years and Mrs. Clara Choate 
restored her to sanity which continued for four years, 
when under a sudden return of her malady she ex- 
pired. But her marvelous restoration made firm 



288 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

converts of brother and sister, and Calvin Frye went 
to Lynn and studied Christian Science in the autumn 
of 1881 and practised heahng in Lawrence until 
Mrs. Eddy summoned him to Boston. Lydia Frye 
Roaf joined her brother and was for a time in charge 
of Mrs. Eddy's domestic affairs. She returned to 
Lawrence and practised Christian Science until her 
death. The Fryes have been a united family, neg- 
lecting none of the filial duties and paying each other 
the attention of* yearly visits. Calvin Frye is a quiet, 
earnest man with a clear and placid countenance, 
and he is not without a mild mirthfulness which 
makes him an agreeable companion. His education 
has been broadened by the habit of reading. In 
practical matters he is an active, careful agent and 
the quality of faithfulness is preeminently his. 

The house which Mr. and Mrs. Eddy had taken 
in Boston before Mr. Eddy's death was at 569 
Columbus avenue. Shortly after her return to Boston 
she removed to the house next door at 571. This was 
a three-story dwelling with gray stone front. It was 
very simply furnished for Mrs. Eddy curtailed and 
modified the views of the enthusiastic students who 
would have had her (as one of them regretfully ex- 
pressed it to the author) ''lay carpets the feet would 
sink into or hang draperies of rich lace and velvet 
and decorate with bronzes and paintings which 
would reflect her taste in art." The students who 
desired and urged such appointments were of two 
temperaments, those who loved her devotedly in a 
very human way and wished to exalt her before the 
world of Boston; others who had decidedly florid 




THE MASSACHUSETTS METAPHYSICAL COLLEGE 



One of a series of gray stone residences in Columbus Avenue 
Boston, occupied by Mrs. Eddy in 1882 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 289 

views of what metaphysics should manifest in 
worldly appearance and would have turned the 
modest gray institute into a Vatican palace, with 
oratories, perpetual altar lights, and chapel incense 
as its features, had they had their way. 

Mrs. Eddy had previously expressed her views on 
these matters. Mrs. Choate had given her a recep- 
tion at her house in Tremont street at the corner of 
Upton street on her return with Mr. Eddy from 
Washington early in the spring of 1882. Through 
the efforts of a student who had a large social ac- 
quaintance the parlors were filled with fashionable 
Bostonians. Mrs. Eddy was simply garbed in a 
quiet gray silk with a black lace shawl draped over 
her shoulders. When she appeared the babble was 
quieted and she made a brief address. She then 
shook hands with a few of the guests, and retired 
from the scene of festivity. She afterward told her 
disappointed students that Christian Science could 
not be forwarded after that method. 

Governed by ideas of simplicity, she now gave 
orders for the fitting out of the college. The class- 
room on the second floor was laid with oil-cloth. 
The wealthy and fashionable students, of whom 
there were now a good many, lifted their hands in 
amazement and despair. Mrs. Eddy further ordered 
a small platform built in one corner on which her 
table and chair should be placed. The entire house 
was furnished with like austerity and had the plain- 
ness of an office even in the front parlors, though it 
was always garnished throughout with the shine of 
perfect order. 

19 



290 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Miss Julia Bartlett and Mrs. Abbie Whiting were 
living in the house. Alice Sibley came and went 
with the freedom of a daughter. Mr. Edward H. 
Hammond of Waltham, who later introduced Chris- 
tian Science into Baltimore, Mr. Hanover P. Smith, 
who wrote a book of appreciation of Mrs. Eddy, and 
Mr. Arthur Buswell also resided there. The house 
was run on the cooperative plan and the residents 
all used the parlors for receiving patients, each hav- 
ing his specified office hours. 

On the front door of the house was affixed a silver 
plate bearing the inscription, *'The Massachusetts 
Metaphysical College," and students soon began to 
overflow the parlors. They were attracted through 
the public services at which Mrs. Eddy usually pre- 
sided, or through the accounts of her own or her 
students' healings which were frequently printed in 
the papers of Boston. Mrs. Eddy's class-room be- 
came the center and soul of the house. She was 
teaching two or three hours a day. Of the work of 
the college, she bore the entire burden. 

So much did she pour her genius into it that when 
its doors were finally closed in 1889 she wrote that 
the college drew its breath from her and, as the 
reason for closing it, asked who else could sustain 
the institute in its vital purpose on her retirement. 
No one had helped her carry on the work of teaching 
up to this time. Asa G. Eddy, it is true, taught two 
terms in Lynn; Dr. E. J. Foster-Eddy taught one 
term in Boston, and General Erastus N. Bates taught 
a class just before the institute was closed. But 
aside from this assistance, Mrs. Eddy taught all the 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 291 

classes that passed through the college during the 
eight years of its existence. The students aggregated 
four thousand. It will be seen that Mrs. Eddy must 
have taught from thirty to fifty students a month 
throughout this period. The task was herculean, 
the work accomplished amazing, for it must be re- 
membered that she was not only teaching several 
hours every day but she was also lecturing every 
Thursday evening in the parlors of the college and 
preaching almost every Sunday. During the first 
few months after her return to Boston she was ar- 
ranging for the establishment of the Journal, which 
made great demands upon her time. 

The Journal of Christian Science, afterwards 
called The Christian Science Journal made its first 
appearance April 14, 1883. The little magazine, 
destined to become the organ of the church, was at 
first an eight- page paper, issued every other month. 
It was an attractive publication from the first mo- 
ment of its birth, and to-day those first numbers are 
so rare and so eagerly desired that the bound vol- 
umes are worth their weight in gold. In the pro- 
spectus Mrs. Eddy stated the purpose of the Journal, 
or rather her purpose in founding it. She said it was 
the desire of her heart '*to bring to many a house- 
hold health, happiness, and increased power to be 
good and to do good ; — to kindle all minds with a 
common sentiment in a regard for and understand- 
ing of Infinite Truth." 

It was not a great literary output in its first issues 
nor did it leap at once to financial self-sufficiency. 
Rather was it a shy, modest little pamphlet which 



g92 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

required the sinking of a good deal of capital to get 
it on its legs, and it was a great drain on the attention 
of the founder. But it was seen at once that it had 
a sufficient raison d'Stre. It conveyed rare touches 
of sympathy for lives shut in, lives that were deso- 
late, lives that had seemed to spell failure. It was 
not sent to the mighty or the learned, nor was it 
designed for such, but for the needy. It contained 
articles on how to keep well, on prayer as a spiritual 
aspiration, on sunshine in the home, on the folly of 
having nerves, the fallacy of that tired feeling, the 
abuse of will power. Its pages sparkled with witty 
sayings culled from great authors, and nuggets of 
gold from philosophic minings. It showed in every 
column the earnest, diligent work of its editor. 

Some of the articles from Mrs. Eddy's pen in these 
early numbers have been reprinted in her book 
''Miscellaneous Writings," which have served as 
the stepping-stone to many of her followers in a 
comprehension of the text-book, "Science and 
Health." There is no doubt that her personality 
is revealed in them in more vivid colors than else- 
where. From time to time in the Journal appeared 
a poem from her hand, and from these devout versi- 
fications were chosen some which have become the 
best beloved hymns of the church. 

Mrs. Eddy did not write the entire contents of the 
Journal, far from it ; there were numerous excellent 
articles by her students and co-workers. But her 
impress is strongly visible, and in glancing through 
its pages one can almost see her at work at her desk, 
so direct and vital is the editorial contact. It is 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 293 

journalism which has the keen and bracing atmos- 
phere that was felt in the old days from such great 
dailies as Horace Greeley's New York Tribune. To 
be sure it is journalism in a limited sphere and with 
its own direct appeal, but it is of that sort which 
brings into a home the highest sense of a socialized 
Hfe. 

The founding of the Journal proved to be one of 
the most effective moves Mrs. Eddy made in the 
establishment of Christian Science. The magazine 
could go cheaply where it would cost a great deal 
of money to send lecturers and practitioners. More- 
over, it carried in a peculiar way the personal touch 
of the founder of Christian Science. And yet the 
Journal was in no sense a personal organ. To so 
style it is to confuse its aims with those of a political 
or biased publication. Its appeal was to the spiritual 
sense of the reader. 

The Journal's history is singular in that it has 
had a series of editors who fell away from Christian 
Science into strange apostasy. The first associate 
editor, Arthur True Buswell, was expelled from the 
Christian Scientist Association. His case was a 
peculiar one and difficult to explain, for he has de- 
clared to the author that Christian Science in his 
opinion is the vital truth of the world. But he also 
admitted that he was attracted to certain apostate 
students who were frankly practising hypnotism. 

Mrs. Emma Hopkins, wife of an Andover pro- 
fessor, was the second to assume the position of 
associate editor, her name first appearing in the 
Journal in February, 1884. Mrs. Hopkins was a 



294 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

student of Mrs. Eddy. She came to her in trouble 
and sickness. She was healed, taught, and provided 
with employment congenial to her mind. But after 
the most extravagant happiness in her new-found 
field of usefulness, she became the victim of a flat- 
tering woman from Detroit who came to study at 
the college. This woman was Mary H. Plunkett, 
known later in New York as an advocate of mar- 
riage by selection of soul affinity without regard to 
marriage and divorce laws. Mrs. Plunkett departed 
for New Zealand with her affinity, leaving her hus- 
band behind and was later reported to have wearied 
of her companion or to have been deserted by him 
and to have entered a religious order. 

This woman succeeded by flattery and cajolement 
in turning the head of Emma Hopkins. She told her 
she would make her the greatest woman on the planet 
and succeeded in making the Andover professor's 
wife believe herself a feminine genius whose name 
would go down the ages as another Hypatia. It was 
strange that a student could sit for two or three hours 
in a class-room under the spiritual teaching which led 
all into a rapt sense of the higher life ; and then make 
her way to the office of a recognized aide de camp 
and there plot desertion and heresy. 

However, it was so. Mrs. Hopkins left with Mrs. 
Plunkett for the West and began teaching a system 
of so-called metaphysics under her management in 
Detroit, Chicago, and other Western cities. Her 
teaching was a perversion of the doctrine she had 
learned from the founder of Christian Science, 
though the perversion was at first so subtle that it 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 295 

was scarcely possible to detect it. It was, however, 
the old heresy of hypnotism clothing itself in religious 
terms. Under the tutelage of the brilliant world- 
ling, for such Mrs. Plunkett was known to have 
been in Detroit, it is not surprising that Mrs. Hop- 
kins found the singularly pure ideals of Mrs. Eddy 
to appear reversed or that she was presently joining 
the chorus of Christian Science deserters in declaring 
her selfish and tyrannical. The two women pub- 
lished for a time a magazine which they called The 
International Magazine of Christian Science, sl de- 
ceptive name which caused considerable annoyance 
to the management of the Journal. 

In the fall of 1885 Mrs. Sarah H. Crosse became 
assistant editor and remained in that position until 
she too left Christian Science with a group of other 
students, some of whom departed from the associa- 
tion in 1888 for the very strange reason that they 
desired to study medicine. This disaffection will be 
spoken of in another chapter. The Rev. Frank 
Mason then became editor of the Journal. He later 
went to New York and founded a church in Brooklyn 
which was non-Christian Science. Mr. William 
G. Nixon took the business management of the 
Journal in 1890 and his apostasy will be described 
in connection with the building of the Mother 
Church. During that ye^r Mr. Joshua Bailey was 
editor and the year following Miss Sarah J. Clark of 
Toledo acted in this capacity, — both loyal students. 
Finally, in 1892, the charge of the Journal was as- 
sumed by Judge Septimus J. Hanna, who stood like 
a rock and for ten years edited it with ability and 



296 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

discretion. He was relieved of his duties in 1902 
that he might become active in the lecture field, 
since which time its able editing has been conducted 
by Mr. Archibald McLellan. 

During all these years the little magazine, in spite 
of precarious storms, under the masterly superguid- 
ance of Mrs. Eddy, grew into a powerful organ for 
the church. In its early days its life was more than 
once threatened by such sinister means as the pub- 
lication of a counterfeit which just escaped the 
infringement of copyright. But of the use of copy- 
rights Mrs. Eddy had been wisely educated by both 
investigation and experience. It was in 1883, 
shortly after founding the Journal, that she exercised 
her knowledge of the law in this respect and brought 
to an end the encroachments of Edward J. Arens 
which have been previously referred to. 

Mrs. Eddy sued Arens for infringement of copy- 
rights by filing a bill in equity in the United States 
Circuit Court at Boston in April, 1883. Arens filed an 
answer in which he alleged that the copyrighted works 
of Mrs. Eddy were not original with her, but had 
been copied by her, or by her direction, from manu- 
scripts originally composed by Phineas Quimby. 
This extraordinary statement he was called upon to 
substantiate with proofs. He was unable to present 
the slightest evidence, his appeals to George Quimby 
of Belfast, Maine, meeting with no response. Arens 
therefore gave notice to the court, through his 
counsel, that he would not submit testimony, that 
he had none to submit. Thus Arens' defense fell 
to the ground and his failure to prove the old and 



FOUNDATION WORK IN BOSTON 297 

worn statement that Mrs. Eddy's book was Quim- 
byism became a veritable vindication of her author- 
ship. The United States Court issued a perpetual 
injunction against Arens, restraining him from print- 
ing, publishing, selling, giving away, or distributing 
in any manner his pirated works under pain of a 
fine of $10,000. Furthermore, his printed books to 
the number of thirty-eight hundred were *'put under 
the edge of the knife and their unlawful existence 
destroyed." The costs of the suit which were $113 
were taxed against Arens. 

Thus the seal of the United States Court was put 
upon Mrs. Eddy's rights as an author, and those 
copyrights which Mr. Eddy secured in her name 
were never again disputed. This signal triumph 
came at a time when Mrs. Eddy needed such a per- 
petual guarantee from justice for her right of way. 
Having secured it, no one could again with propriety 
publicly or privately dispute her authoritative claim 
as discoverer of the science she was establishing. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE WIDE HORIZON 

T^HE modest appeal of The Christian Science 
Journal very early began to create results which 
were first apparent in the arrival of students from 
the West at the Metaphysical College in Boston. 
And no sooner had the first Western students re- 
turned to their homes than they began to insert their 
cards as practitioners in the Journal, and thereafter 
letters of inquiry poured in from Milwaukee and 
Chicago, and Mrs. Eddy's morning mail began to 
assume bulky proportions. She published a notice 
in the magazine referring the inquirers to her West- 
ern students, but they were not to be satisfied with 
anything but information from headquarters. 

In the spring of 1884 a pressing demand came 
from Chicago that a teacher of Christian Science be 
sent there — if Mrs. Eddy herself would not come. 
So manifold were the demands on Mrs. Eddy's 
time that the idea of a Western trip seemed out of 
the question. Her correspondence, her classes, her 
Thursday evening lectures, and Sunday morning ser- 
mons, to say nothing of the editing of the Journal, 
left her no time for the slightest recreation and 
seemed too imperative to be laid down for a fraction 
of an hour. Conducting a class in Chicago would 
mean a month's absence. In the emergency she 



THE WIDE HORIZON 299 

looked about her for a suitable and capable person 
to send out to the Macedonia of the West. 

Among the names that suggested themselves to 
her was that of Mrs. Clara Choate, a student who had 
occasionally taken her place in the pulpit and who 
had performed excellent work as a practitioner and 
teacher. But when she broached the subject to Mrs. 
Choate she found her unwilling to go. Mrs. Choate 
had a large practise in Boston, her home ties seemed 
strong. She had living with her an aged parent and 
her child was in school. Mrs. Eddy recognized the 
weight of the objection and did not urge the request 
upon her, but it became something for discussion 
among the students that Clara Choate was at vari- 
ance with her teacher. A situation not exactly har- 
monious appeared to be arising. To dispel this Mrs. 
Eddy called together the students resident in her 
house for a prayerful consideration of, the duties of 
all and their obligations to her as faithful disciples. 
She foresaw that the work was growing with such 
giant strides that faithfulness to duty must be 
exacted and yielded if the call for missionaries was 
to be answered. 

It was not possible for Mrs. Eddy to call a con- 
ference in this somewhat over-eager community of 
students without enormous significance attaching 
itself to the occasion. Realizing this, she requested 
the students of the house to regard the meeting for 
counsel as a private meeting, and directly the name 
Private Meeting was coined. The Private Meeting 
society, or the "P.M.," as it was immediately dubbed, 
became talked about among the students outside the 



300 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

house who felt that something was being planned 
from which they were to be excluded. The P. M. 
society met but twice, but so widely was its existence 
discussed that Mrs. Eddy was obliged four years 
later to write an account of its deliberations. She 
related that the meetings had considered two topics, 
first, "There is no Animal Magnetism;" second, 
"God is all; there is none beside Him." These 
topics were given out without instructions and the 
students who joined in the meeting were expected 
to quietly treat the disharmony in their midst. 

''If harm could come from the consideration of 
these two topics," Mrs. Eddy wrote, ''it was because 
of the misconception of those subjects in the minds 
that handled them. ... I dissolved the society and 
we have not met since." ^ 

In April Mrs. Eddy decided that she herself would 
go in response to the increasingly urgent call from 
the West. She handed over the charge of the Jour- 
nal to Mrs. Hopkins, arranged for a suspension of 
her Thursday night lectures, and provided for cer- 
tain of her students to fill the pulpit during her 
absence. Class work in the college was likewise sus- 
pended. The arrangements for the journey were 
left to Mr. Frye, who was to travel with her as secre- 
tary while Mrs. Sarah Crosse attended her as a 
companion. She spent a month in Chicago teaching 
a class in a private house on the West Side. Double 
parlors were taken for the class work, beside the 
suite of rooms engaged for her party. 

Students came from towns outside of Chicago as 

* "Miscellaneous Writings," p. 350. 



THE WIDE HORIZON 301 

well as from various parts of the city. The parlors 
soon proved inconveniently small, but the work was 
successful for her teaching met with enthusiasm. 
The great Christian Science movement of the West 
resulted from that early visit of Mrs. Eddy, a visit 
undertaken in such perplexity as this call, colliding 
with her stress of work, had brought about. But by 
business punctiliousness and executive command 
she had been able to lay down the duties which had 
at first seemed imperative of personal direction. 
Few of her followers could then understand the 
amazing fortitude this required. But the Western 
field in the years following justified its demand 
upon her time. Its response was an abundant 
harvest of idealism in the midst of vaunting mate- 
rialism. 

When she returned to Boston it was with vision 
rested by that far horizon which was presently to 
stretch to the Pacific. Not many months later there 
appeared in the Journal this notice : **The California 
Metaphysical Institute affords an opportunity on the 
Pacific Coast for receiving a course of instruction in 
the rudiments of Christian Science. Those desiring 
to enter a class, or to obtain further information, 
will address Sue Ella Bradshaw, C. S. B., San Jose, 
California. And one month later a similar card ad- 
vertised the establishment of the Illinois Christian 
Science Institute, incorporated, at Chicago. This 
was but the beginning of what rapidly grew into a 
network of academies and institutes for the dissemi- 
nation of her doctrine. 

When the church showed signs of outgrowing its 
Boston and New England environment it became 



S02 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

necessary to look to the needs of the field at large. 
Mrs. Eddy realized this need almost before it was 
apparent, certainly before it was obvious to other 
eyes than hers. She had done everything hitherto 
to promulgate her doctrine ; now it was forced upon 
her that she must safeguard it from adulteration and 
heresy. In her very first class in Chicago there arose 
a mind to lead a rebellion. Mrs. Ursula Gestafeld 
was the student who subsequently led a movement 
of mental scientists in the Western city, and her in- 
novation, counterfeiting the teaching she had re- 
ceived, was but a type of what might and did occur 
in other localities. 

'*For many successive years," Mrs. Eddy writes, 
"I have endeavored to find new ways and means for 
the promotion and expansion of scientific Mind- 
healing, seeking to broaden its channels, and, if 
possible, to build a hedge round about it, that 
should shelter its perfections from the contami- 
nating influences of those who have a small portion 
of its letter, and less of its Spirit. At the same 
time I have worked to provide a home for every 
true seeker and honest worker in this vineyard of 
Truth. 

**To meet the broader wants of humanity, and 
provide folds for the sheep that were without shep- 
herds, I suggested to my students, in 1886, the pro- 
priety of forming a National Christian Scientist 
Association. This was immediately done, and 
delegations from the Christian Scientist Association 
of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and 
from branch associations in other states, met in 



THE WIDE HORIZON 303 

general convention at New York City, February 
11, 1886." ' 

Thus Mrs. Eddy describes how, from her address 
to the association in Boston which held its tenth 
annual meeting on January sixth of that year at the 
college building, the action was immediately taken 
to carry out her views and wishes for the associa- 
tions in other cities to be drawn into a unity of pur- 
pose. On February tenth the first regular meeting of 
the national association was held in New York City 
with delegates present from Boston and Chicago. 
This national association held four subsequent 
meetings and was of tremendous aid in the formative 
period of the church. It held its second meeting in 
Boston, its third meeting in Chicago, its fourth meet- 
ing in Cleveland, and its final meeting in New York, 
when Mrs. Eddy requested its members to adjourn 
for an indefinite period. She had then other plans 
for the church which unfolded successfully and 
harmoniously. 

It was somewhat in consequence of the forming 
of the national association, somewhat in the gradual 
missionary work of the Journal, and largely because 
of the healing work of the students, who went out 
from the college month after month, that the Chris- 
tian Science doctrine spread to every part of the 
country. This book is not a history of the Christian 
Science movement, hence it is not within its prov- 
ince to show how it came about that thirty acade- 
mies were in existence in 1888. But so it was, and 
these schools were in Colorado, Kansas, California, 

* "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 73. 



304 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Iowa, Nebraska, New York, The District of Co- 
lumbia, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Wisconsin, Ohio, 
Missouri, and Kentucky. 

This inspiring growth of adherents in all parts of 
the country did not result instantaneously or mirac- 
ulously from Mrs. Eddy's visit to Chicago, but grew 
with a healthy, sturdy activity during the four years 
intervening between the spring of 1884 and 1888. 
Mrs. Eddy was meantime faithfully pursuing her 
work at the college on Columbus avenue. Her 
house became the center of much interest and was 
for several years a very notable residence in Boston. 
It was substantial without being pretentious, its 
arrangement was typical of modern city residences 
and Mrs. Eddy relaxed somewhat the rigid order of 
its furnishings as the months flew by and her finan- 
cial resources were more abundant and secure. 
On the first floor was a suite of parlors continuous 
with a small reception-room. These rooms could 
all be thrown together by opening sliding doors, and 
this was done on Thursday nights when the curious 
Boston literary folk came to hear the new doctrine. 
For, had they not read what Bronson Alcott said of 
this new teacher of metaphysics, and was not Bron- 
son Alcott a prophet to be heeded ? ^ 

So it became a common question in the drawing- 
rooms of the eighties, ''Have you met Mrs. Eddy, 

* "The profound truths which you announce, sustained by facts of the 
immortal life, give to your work the seal of inspiration — reaffirm in modern 
phrase the Christian revelations. In times hke these, so sunk in sensualism, 
I hail with joy your voice, speaking an assured word for God and immortahty, 
and my joy is heightened that these words are of woman's divinings." — Bron- 
son Alcott in a letter to Mary Baker Eddy, dated Concord, Mass., and quoted 
in the "Journal." 



THE WIDE HORIZON 305 

have you heard her lecture, have you been to her 
college?" And to Mrs. Eddy's home came many 
distinguished persons during the years from 1884 to 
1887. It was not then so difficult a matter to meet 
the founder of Christian Science as it became later. 
One had only to ring her bell and state his purpose 
of inquiry to a student on duty, and as soon as Mrs. 
Eddy could lay aside the work of the moment she 
would come to the reception-room, a kindly and 
sympathetic hostess with the rare charm of perfect 
composure through which shone a radiant readiness 
to believe the highest and best and noblest of whom- 
soever presented himself. Among such callers and 
inquirers into her teaching were Frances Hodgson 
Burnett and Louisa M. Alcott. These two women, 
since crowned with literary laurels and embalmed 
for the future with a fame all their own, went to- 
gether, one day, as was related by a literary woman 
of Boston, to meet Mrs. Eddy and acquaint them- 
selves with her doctrine from her own lips. 

"Mrs. Burnett appeared to receive Christian Sci- 
ence like a birdling fed," said this literary lady, her- 
self the editor of a journal. **But Miss Alcott, 
though her father was a transcendentalist and some 
years before had more than half avowed a faith in 
the new system of metaphysics, did not take to it. 
She was of a very practical, matter-of-fact mind. 
She had had enough of idealism and was determined 
to keep her feet upon terra firma. But she was im- 
pressed with Mrs. Eddy's personality." ^ 

If Miss Alcott was impressed with her personality, 

^ Katherine Conway, of The Pilot, in an interview. 
20 



306 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

she certainly did not correctly apprehend the doc- 
trine, as she revealed her understanding of it in an 
article written for the Woman's Journal, a magazine 
devoted to woman's suffrage and conducted by Miss 
Alice Stone Blackwell. Mrs. Eddy replied to her 
article in the Christian Science Journal, kindly point- 
ing out the difference between hypnosis and her own 
teaching. It is interesting to note that Miss Black- 
well was herself a contributor to the Christian 
Science Journal on the subject of suffrage in April, 
1887. 

In printing the article on suffrage in her journal, 
in frequent references to the educational advance- 
ment of women, and in reviewing books on diverse 
subjects, Mrs. Eddy revealed a broad interest in 
woman's work all over the world. She likewise 
maintained an active, alert interest in the sermons 
and public speeches of eminent men, and either 
herself or through her editors reviewed philosophic 
treatises that came from the press. 

Of Madame Blavatsky and theosophy she had 
somewhat to say and printed an article which, while 
it radically disagreed with theosophic occultism, gave 
the Russian woman credit for broad scholarship. 
On the other hand, in a review of a publication on 
George Eliot's essays and verse by Rose Elizabeth 
Cleveland, Mrs. Eddy praises Miss Cleveland for 
her felicity as an editor and in a genuine outburst of 
sincere appreciation of the great English novelist 
declares her womanly and heroic with firm, un- 
faltering adherence to honest conviction and con- 
scientious reasonableness. ''Her metaphysics purge 



THE WIDE HORIZON 307 

materialism with a single sentence," declares Mrs. 
Eddy, quoting the sentence as follows, **One may 
know all that is to be known about matter and noth- 
ing that needs to be known about man." 

Lihan Whiting, author of **The World Beauti- 
ful," then a Boston journalist and correspondent for 
Western papers, described a visit to Mrs. Eddy in 
an article for the Ohio Leader, dated July 2, 1885. 
As Miss Whiting was not a Christian Scientist her 
description is edifying as to how Mrs. Eddy ap- 
peared to the casual visitor of those days. Miss 
Whiting wrote that her note requesting permission 
to call was replied to with a courteous invitation to 
do so at an hour named. She continues : 

"Accordingly at eight o'clock on that evening I 
rang the bell of the large and handsome residence on 
Columbus avenue near West Chester. Park, known 
as the Metaphysical College. A maid ushered me 
into a daintily furnished reception-room where pic- 
tures and bric-a-brac indicated refinement and taste. 
Presently Mrs. Eddy came in and greeted me with a 
manner that, while cordial and graceful, was also 
something more, and had in it an indefinable ele- 
ment of harmony ; and a peace that was not mere 
repose, but more like exaltation. It was subtle and 
indefinable, however, and I did not think of it espe- 
cially at the time, although I felt it. The conversa- 
tion touched lightly on current topics and finally 
recurred to the subject of metaphysics." 

Describing her singular experience as a result of 
the call, she says: **I remembered afterwards how 
extremely tired I was as I walked wearily and 



308 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

languidly up the steps to Mrs. Eddy's door. I came 
away, as a little child friend of mine says, 'skipping.' 
I was at least a mile from my hotel and I walked 
home feeling as though I were treading on air. My 
sleep that night was the rest of Elysium. If I had 
been caught up into paradise, it could hardly have 
been a more wonderful renewal." Miss Whiting 
continues as though loath to cease the description 
and, with many adjectives, dwells on her "exalted 
state," the ''marvelous elasticity of mind and body," 
and "an utterly unprecedented buoyancy and energy 
which lasted days." She then remembers to state 
that all this was the result of a half hour's conver- 
sation on metaphysics with "the most famous mind- 
curer of the day." 

Such were some of Mrs. Eddy's experiences with 
the sisterhood of writers who now rendered grave or 
excited appreciation and anon intellectual dispar- 
agement. But whether they were critical or effusive 
of praise, Mrs. Eddy never turned one of them away, 
or refused an audience to any inquirer. To doctors, 
clergymen, and philosophers she gave intellectual 
attention and while she lived in the world of affairs, 
she lived in it broadly, deeply, generously, acting 
her own part as a leader wisely, but yielding cour- 
teous consideration to all other leaders in whatever 
movement and without regard to sex. 

The increasing number of her students, their 
teaching and healing in the wider field, now opening 
up for the establishment of the new church, created 
an ever-increasing demand for her text-book, "Sci- 
ence and Health." The book had been through 



THE WIDE HORIZON 309 

fifteen editions, and there were therefore fifteen thou- 
sand copies in circulation, but letters came to her 
from the West, complaining that the book was not 
obtainable. It was necessary to put forth a fresh 
edition, and Mrs. Eddy determined to revise the book 
and give to it the benefit of her experience in eluci- 
dating many of its statements. 

On her return from the visit to Chicago she did 
not take up the active editorship of the Journal^ but 
contented herself with supervising its columns, ap- 
plying herself in all spare moments to the rewriting of 
** Science and Health." For many months she 
worked on the manuscript and in August, 1885, she 
had prepared a completed first draft. This man- 
uscript contained all the essential matter of the 
earlier editions, — as a comparison will show, — 
but it had been amplified and clarified and given 
illuminating touches throughout by Mrs. Eddy's 
higher unfoldment in metaphysical understanding. 

Having completed the first draft of her work, 
Mrs. Eddy engaged the Rev. James Henry Wiggin to 
read the manuscript with a view to indexing it and 
also to preparing it for the printer with the privilege 
of making proper technical emendations such as are 
usually given all manuscripts by the editors of a pub- 
lishing house. Mr. Wiggin was a man whom many 
Boston authors had employed for such work, and, 
because of his reputation for honor and ability, she be- 
lieved that her book might be entrusted to his hands 
without fear that he would overstep his privilege 
and tamper with its subject matter or context. Such 
proved to be the character of his workmanship. 



810 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Mr. Wiggin was a prominent figure in Boston 
literary circles during the eighties and nineties. He 
was a retired Unitarian clergyman and for a time 
an editor for the University Press. While he was, in 
a sense, a man of the world, that is to say, a social 
fraternizer with the literary, musical, and artistic 
Bohemia of two continents, — for he traveled some- 
what in Europe, — he was a man of character and 
enjoyed the friendship of men highly esteemed. John 
Wilson and Edward Everett Hale were his friends. 

It is difficult to understand why after he passed 
to another world the claim was made in his name 
that he practically rewrote "Science and Health." 
Mr. Wiggin himself never made such a claim in 
any writings which he left, and it may be sincerely 
doubted if he would have considered it honorable 
to strike so vitally at the integrity of any writer 
for whom he had worked as to cast a doubt upon 
the product of his mind. To even make the claim 
of polishing and giving style to a writer's expres- 
sion is, as it were, to assert that he has something 
to say and does not know how to say it. The fact 
that Mrs. Eddy's book had gone through fifteen edi- 
tions before Mr. Wiggin came on the scene proved 
that she both had something to say and knew how 
to say it. 

Mr. Wiggin used the pseudonym Phare Pleigh in 
writing for The Christian Science Journal, and it is 
doubtful if Mr. Wiggin would think it fair play to 
print his personal letters after his death. He was 
a friend of Mrs. Eddy, though never a convert to 
Christian Science, and being a man of the world, he 



THE WIDE HORIZON 311 

expressed himself on the subject of the new religion 
at various times in various ways according to his 
mood and the character of the friend he was with. 
But what Mr. Wiggin thought as to Mrs. Eddy's 
authorship he expressed in an extensive review pub- 
lished in 1886 entitled '* Christian Science and the 
Bible." In this review the following passage occurs : 

"Now in this century there has arisen a sect called 
Christian Scientists. Their founder and corner- 
stone is Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy. Born in 
Concord, New Hampshire, and afterwards a resi- 
dent of Sanbornton and Lynn, she has been for 
several years a resident of Boston, where she is 
pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist. She is 
also president of the Massachusetts Metaphysical 
College, a school of the prophets whose students are 
taught Mrs. Eddy's views as they are set forth in 
* Science and Health,' a book which she first pub- 
lished ten years ago, and which has since passed 
through many editions, though she practised and 
taught the Science years before the book was printed 
or the college established." 

Through a period of five years Mr. "Wiggin wrote 
many articles for The Christian Science Journal and 
he used his brain and talents in its defense, taking 
up the cudgels against clergymen in all parts of the 
country who essayed in sermon or magazine article 
to ridicule the new faith. Is it necessary to assume 
that he was acting the part of a hypocrite or merely 
enjoying a tilt with professional theologians under 
the cover of his pseudonym like a masked knight at a 
tournament ? 



SU THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

It is possible that he was more strongly attracted 
to Christian Science than some of his worldly asso- 
ciates knew. In one of his articles in the Journal, 
"Heard at the Clubs," he tells how a political dis- 
cussion in which he was interested was interrupted 
by a reference to Christian Science and how an 
editor, an actor, and others testified to its benefits to 
the astonishment of a noted literary divine from 
Great Britain. He declared, *'the talk everywhere 
turns on Christian Science and whoever has met the 
founder has been impressed with her integrity of 
purpose." His various articles may be found in vol- 
umes three and four of the JournaL 

Men of great parts have elsewhere and often been 
attracted to a cause, served it for a time earnestly 
and faithfully, and then fallen away from it. But in 
such instances it is seldom asserted that they gave it 
its life blood and then grew ashamed of it and ridi- 
culed it. Such men do not give life blood to any- 
thing. They may be clever and gifted, but they are 
never the inspiration of a movement. 

After Mr. Wiggin had handled Mrs. Eddy's man- 
uscript for the sixteenth edition of her book this an- 
nouncement was made in the Journal for January, 
1886: ''Attention is called to this volume. It is 
worth the notice not only of Christian Scientists, 
but of all who are interested in the progress of truth. 
It is from the University Press, Cambridge, and this 
is a guaranty for its typographical appearance. All 
the material of other editions is herein retained, 
but all of it has been carefully revised and rewritten 
by Mrs. Eddy, and greatly improved. The ar- 



THE WIDE HORIZON 313 

rangement of the chapters has been changed. One 
new chapter has been added, on the Apocalypse, 
giving an exposition of the bearings on Christian 
Science of the twelfth chapter of Revelation, to 
which it is believed by Mrs. Eddy to particularly 
relate. A special feature is a full index, prepared 
especially for this edition by a competent gentleman. 
In these days no important book has a right to come 
before the public without a proper index." 

For about five years Mr. Wiggin gave Mrs. Eddy 
the benefit of his literary training in reading the 
proofs of her successive editions and also the proofs 
of the Journal, She paid him fittingly for his work 
and cherished a kindly regard for him. It is regret- 
table that a revelation of his personal vanity as shown 
in private correspondence should have been given 
to the world in recent pamphlets — since vanity and 
egotism are common weaknesses shared in some 
degree by all mankind. In a playful protest against 
his learned profundities exhibited on one occasion 
in a philosophic review printed in the Journal, Mrs. 
Eddy wrote: ''Now Phare Pleigh evidently means 
more than 'hands off.' A live lexicographer of the 
Anglo-Saxon tongue might add to the definition the 
'laying on of hands' as well. Whatever his nom de 
plume means, an acquaintance with the author jus- 
tifies one in the conclusion that he is a power in 
criticism, a big protest against injustice, — but the 
best may be mistaken." * 

^ It was a great mistake to say that I employed Reverend James Hemy 
Wiggin to correct my diction. It was for no such purpose. I engaged Mr. 
Wiggin so as to avail myself of his criticisms of my statement of Christian 
Science, which criticisms would enable me to explain more clearly the points 



314 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

With Mrs. Eddy's own gentleness of characteri- 
zation and generosity of appreciation, Mr. Wiggin 
may fall into his rightful place in the story of her 
life as an aid and not a marplot, and his memory 
need not be stigmatized with the reproach of lit- 
erary caddishness. 

During the summer of 1888 Mrs. Eddy spent a 
few weeks in Fabyans, New Hampshire, at the White 
Mountain House. Her student, Mrs. Janette E. 
Weller, traveled with her. She gave an informal 
address at the Fabyan House to the summer 
guests, who gathered from various resorts in the 
mountains when they learned that she was so- 
journing a few days at this hotel. She after- 
ward withdrew with her secretary and traveling 
companion to the farm of Ira O. Knapp for ab- 
solute retirement. She had just closed an eventful 
year in which she had formulated the subject matter 

that might seem ambiguous to the reader. Mr. Calvin A. Frye copied my 
writings, and he will teU you that Mr. Wiggin left my diction quite out of the 
question, sometimes saying, "I would n't express it that way." He often dis- 
sented from what I had written, but I quieted him by quoting corroborative 
texts of Scripture. 

In Christian Science my diction has been called original. The hberty that 
I have taken with capitaUzation in order to express the "new tongue" has well 
nigh constituted a new style of language. In almost every case where Mr. 
Wiggin added words, I have erased them in my revisions. 

IVIr. Wiggin was not my proof-reader for my book, "Miscellaneous Writ- 
ings," and for only two of my books. I especially employed him on "Science 
and Health with Key to the Scriptures" because at that date some critics de- 
clared that my book was as ungrammatical as it was misleading. I availed 
myself of the name of the former proof-reader for the University Press, Cam- 
bridge, to defend my grammatical construction, and confidently awaited the 
years to declare the moral and spiritual effect upon the age of "Science and 
Health with Key to the Scriptures. "... I hold the late Mr. Wiggin in lov- 
ing and grateful memory for his high-principled character and well-equipped 
scholarship. Maby Baker Eddy. 

Pleasant View, Concord, New Hampshire, Nov. 20, 1906. 

— Statement printed in the "New York American," November 22, 1906. 



THE WIDE HORIZON 315 

of a new book, written during the winter and put 
forth in May, 1888, changed her residence, and paid 
an eventful visit to Chicago. 

"Unity of Good and UnreaUty of Evil" was ad- 
vertised in these words in the Journal: ''This little 
book is at last ready for the public. Next to ' Science 
and Health' it is the most important work she has 
written." And it remains to-day the most important 
because of its absolute metaphysics. Her entire 
list of publications in that year included "Science 
and Health," "Unity of Good," "Christian Heal- 
ing," "People's Idea of God," "Christian Science, 
No and Yes," "Mind Healing, an Historical Sketch," 
and "Rudiments and Rules of Divine Science." 

It was becoming well-nigh impossible for Mrs. 
Eddy to have even an hour of her waking time to 
herself for the purpose of meditation, deliberation, 
or consideration of the larger plans that were now 
imperative. How "Unity of Good" was written is 
a mystery, for while she lived at the college whoever 
sought her had but to knock on her door. The large 
chamber over the parlors at the college was more 
of a library, a study, an office, than a quiet chamber 
for rest. Her door was thronged from early morning 
until late at night, and the uselessness of such dis- 
traction was that the most insistent besiegers were 
those with the least important business. 

For such reasons, and because the field actually 
demanded her wisest deliberations, Mrs. Eddy took 
steps to remove from the college building. During 
the holiday season of 1887 she left Columbus avenue 
to reside in a house she had purchased at 385 



316 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Commonwealth avenue. This was the first house she 
had owned since the Broad street house in Lynn, for 
she leased the college building at a rental of one 
thousand dollars annually. Her new home was on 
the outskirts of Boston, overlooking from the rear 
in those days the Charles River and fronting on 
a boulevard parkway where stands to-day the superb 
Anne Whitney statue of Lief Ericsson. The house 
included twenty beautiful rooms. It was fitted up 
suitably, though not extravagantly and Mrs. Eddy 
established herself here with her secretary and 
her companion. Her life was fixed by a very 
punctilious order; she wrote at certain hours, 
received at certain hours, attended the college 
to teach her classes, and began to take the daily 
drive which was to be the only recreation she insisted 
upon from that time until her earthly departure. 

The West was calling for her again. Letters which 
poured in told her that she must go out to the field 
once more. The National Christian Scientist Asso- 
ciation was to meet in Chicago in 1888, and Mrs. 
Eddy determined to deal with all her students' needs 
and wants at that focal point and meet them for the 
purpose of satisfying their insistent claims upon her 
attention. In order that the occasion might be a 
gratifying one to the entire field, and that the church 
might be renewed and refreshed for its pioneer work, 
Mrs. Eddy issued a call for this convention which 
was printed in the Journal for May. She said : 

Christian Scientists: For Christ's and for hu- 
manity's sake, gather together, meet en masse, at 
the annual session of the National Christian Science 



THE WIDE HORIZON 317 

Association. Be of one mind in one place and God 
will pour you out a blessing such as you never before 
received. He who dwelleth in eternal light is bigger 
than the shadow, and will guard and guide His own. 
Let no consideration bend or outweigh your pur- 
pose to be in Chicago on June the 13th. 

This call was not without its effect. Hundreds 
journeyed to Chicago to attend what was anticipated 
as a " week's jubilee of spirit." It was the first great 
gathering of Christian Scientists from many parts of 
the United States. The knowledge had gone abroad 
that Mrs. Eddy would herself attend the convention, 
and this served to draw together not only the stud- 
ents w^ho had graduated from her classes, but also 
hundreds who had been healed by her students and 
who wished to know more of her philosophy. Mrs. 
Eddy made the journey accompanied by Captain and 
Mrs. Eastaman, and her secretary Calvin Frye. 
Dr. E. J. Foster, a young physician who had 
studied with her, and whom she afterwards legally 
adopted as her son, joined the party in Chicago. 

The national association held its business meet- 
ings in the First Methodist church of Chicago, then 
situated on Washington and Clark streets. On the 
second day the convention assembled at Central 
Music Hall for a program of addresses to be deliv- 
ered by practising students. The doors being 
opened to the public, much to the astonishment of 
the eight hundred delegates, there assembled an 
audience of about four thousand, among whom were 
many prominent Chicagoans, for the newspapers 
had not failed to advertise the fact that the Boston 



818 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

prophetess, as they chose to call her, was in the city. 
All unaware of the curiosity her coming had aroused, 
Mrs. Eddy attended the meeting, expecting to occupy 
a seat upon the platform among her students, but 
to take no part in the program. Her purpose was 
to greet and cheer her students. 

Destiny was not to have it so. The Rev. George 
B. Day, pastor of the First Church of Christ, Scien- 
tist, in Chicago, had decided to introduce her as the 
speaker of the day and on his own authority had in- 
serted a notice in the papers that she would make an 
address. As he led Mrs. Eddy through the ante- 
room to escort her to the stage, he acquainted her 
with his purpose. His fear that she would refuse to 
accede had led him to delay telling her until the last 
moment before she stepped upon the platform. A 
student much beloved of Mrs. Eddy who was stand- 
ing near the door, saw her protest with an outward 
sweep of her hand and a slow negative shake of the 
head, and declare with emphasis that she was in no 
way prepared to speak. The clergyman, all excite- 
ment and nervousness, persisted and Mrs. Eddy 
halted for a moment on the threshold of the stage 
and lifted her eyes as though for inspiration and 
guidance. A newspaper report of what followed 
says: 

Without a subject selected and without notes 
she entered the platform when, as by some precon- 
certed plan, the whole vast audience rose to its feet 
and welcomed her. She walked to the center of 
the stage and after being introduced recited the 
first verse of the ninety-first psalm and in the ad- 



THE WIDE HORIZON 319 

dress which followed her voice filled that immense 
auditorium so that those most remote from her could 
hear distinctly. 

The address thus delivered without preparation, 
outline, or text has been pronounced by many of 
her students to be one of the greatest statements of 
Christian Science ever made from a rostrum. Like 
Lincoln's great unreported speech, delivered in 
Bloomington, it came upon the delegates as a sur- 
prise, and so spellbound were the hearers that the 
very reporters forgot to take notes. It was inade- 
quately reported, and though the substance of it was 
sent out to the papers, and was printed in the Journal, 
and the report was subsequently reprinted in *' Mis- 
cellaneous Writings" under the subject. Science and 
the Senses, it is certain that something of the spirit 
of her utterances was lost in the transcription, for 
the amazing effect of her address cannot entirely be 
understood from reading it to-day. 

When she ceased speaking, the scenes which im- 
mediately followed were intensely dramatic, extraor- 
dinary, unprecedented. In the audience were many 
who had been healed from grievous illnesses by 
reading her book, and scarcely any of her hearers 
but had known of marvelous cures ; hence the audi- 
ence was anticipating a miraculous wave of health 
and it received it at flood tide. Whatever had been 
on the program was forgotten for the time, swept 
aside by an impetuous forward rush of that audience 
to the platform, indifferent to the chairman's at- 
tempts to get a hearing. 

It was well Mrs. Eddy was elevated above the 



320 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

throng or she would have been borne down by it. 
As it was, men leaped to the stage and assisted 
women to follow. They wanted to take her hand, to 
tell her of wonderful healings, to touch her dress if 
nothing more. A babble of rejoicing broke forth 
above which came the cries of many who were 
crowded to the rear, beseeching attention to them- 
selves. A mother who failed to get near held high her 
babe, an old woman held up palsied hands, crying, 
**Help me!" Some persons declared the address 
had healed them spontaneously. Men and women 
wept together. 

So carried away by the tide of emotion as to neg- 
lect details, the newspaper correspondent who re- 
ported these events for a Boston paper declared 
simply that many were healed there and then. As a 
matter of fact the cases verified were actually eleven. 
The Boston Traveler reporter said: '*As the people 
thronged about Mrs. Eddy with blessings and 
thanks, meekly and almost silently she received their 
homage until she was led away from the place, the 
throng blocking her way from the door to the 
carriage." 

Wliile in Chicago Mrs. Eddy lived at the Palmer 
House, and access to her being easily gained, impor- 
tunate callers besieged her doors. It was no part of 
her plan to hold a public reception in Chicago, or in 
fact to do anything of a public nature. Her amaze- 
ment at the publicity thrust upon her left her without 
choice, and how to satisfy the sudden demand for 
personal greeting was a difiicult question to decide. 
In the evening of the day on which she experienced 



THE WIDE HORIZON S21 

such an ovation, she decided to go to the parlors for 
a short time to satisfy the persistent callers. 

Learning of her decision, the hotel hurriedly deco- 
rated the rooms with a profusion of flowers, giving a 
festive and brilliant appearance for an impromptu 
reception. This was to prove a singular function. 
Men and women of wealth and fashion crowded and 
elbowed persons from the humblest walks of life. 
The parlors, the corridors, the stairways were 
thronged. When Mrs. Eddy came from her private 
suite and entered the drawing-room, the assemblage 
almost immediately lost its head in one concerted, 
intense desire to touch the hand of the woman who 
had so eloquently preached God's love as to make the 
sick well at the sound of her voice. They pressed 
forward upon her regardless of each other. Silks and 
laces were torn, flowers crushed, and jewels lost. 
Mrs. Eddy drew back from the pressure of humanity 
and as she looked upon the flushed faces she seemed 
to shrink within herself, as if asking, '*What came 
you here to see.^" She turned to her secretary and 
companion for assistance and almost immediately 
withdrew by a side door. When the company 
learned that she had withdrawn they gradually and 
disappointedly dispersed. 

From such scenes Mrs. Eddy had always shrunk 
with peculiar sensitiveness. As she had told her 
students when first coming to Boston, she now 
reiterated to her immediate helpers, *' Christian 
Science is not forwarded by these methods." A year 
later in Steinway Hall, New York City, Mrs. Eddy 
had a similar experience. There the audience was 

11 



322 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

requested to file by her across the stage, and obedience 
to the request was enforced by the ushers. In the 
confusion of the reception, however, strange scenes 
occurred. Faithful students were startled to see 
Mrs. Mary H. Plunkett press forward, take Mrs. 
Eddy's hand, and leaning forward, dramatically kiss 
her cheek. Thus she publicly associated herself with 
the teacher whose work she had misrepresented and 
whose trust she had betrayed. 

Public functions and such scenes of worldly am- 
bition had much to do with a resolve which was 
growing in Mrs. Eddy's mind to withdraw entirely 
from public life that the adulation of her personality 
might cease and the truth she taught have oppor- 
tunity to make its way through the work of her 
students. 



CHAPTER XX 

WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 

WHILE the "jubilee of spirit" was being cele- 
brated in Chicago during June, 1888, a quite 
different order of mental activity was causing fo- 
mentation in the Christian Scientist Association at 
Boston. Some of Mrs. Eddy's students had become 
inoculated with the theories of Mr. Julius Dresser 
and Dr. Warren F. Evans. Both of these men had 
been patients of Quimby during the early sixties 
and both undertook to establish systems of healing. 
Both men printed and issued books on mental sci- 
ence. They attracted a small following which in 
later days came to be known as the New Thought 
Movement. 

It was not so much the teaching of these writers 
on mental suggestion which attracted Mrs. Eddy's 
students, — for those who had passed through her 
classes well knew that mental suggestion and Chris- 
tian Science were as divergent as a chimeric dream 
and a scientific discovery, — but rather was it the 
thought that they might carry Christian Science 
itself outside the walls of its citadel and become 
writers and teachers and leaders among the philis- 
tines. Christian Science within the fold was too 
stringent in its demands. Not satisfied with manna, 
they would return to the flesh-pots of Egypt. The 



324 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

meat desired was intellectual divertissement; not 
only that, they would handle the things of God with 
more careless ease and roll the jewels of the temple 
upon the street for the delectation of the curious. 

Thus it was that a group of rebels had coalesced 
within the Christian Scientist Association. They 
were not without examples for their dereliction. 
The group of students who departed from the church 
in Lynn had preceded them by about ten years and 
gone their ways into the inviting world of freedom. 
Mrs. Plunkett, Mrs. Hopkins, Mrs. Gestafeld had 
emulated Kennedy, Spofford, and Arens. But these 
examples were not edifying as solutions of the prob- 
lem of finding happiness by returning to intellectual 
speculation after avowing allegiance to a spiritual 
ideal. Therefore this new group of Christian 
Science deserters would find a more plausible reason 
for their conduct. 

In order that they might manage their departure 
without the shame of expulsion they took advan- 
tage of the absence of Mrs. Eddy and the secretary, 
William B. Johnson, to possess themselves of the 
Association's books. These they placed in a lawyer's 
hands and notified Mrs. Eddy on her return from 
Chicago that the books would not be surrendered 
until they had received an honorable dismissal from 
the Association. Expulsion, they felt, would be 
dishonorable, carrying with it the implication of 
unworthiness. 

While the unmannerly abstraction of the Associ- 
ation's books was the modus operandi of their re- 
bellion, the casus belli announced was the Corner 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 325 

case. In the spring of 1888 Mrs. Abby H. Corner, 
a student and member of the Association, had 
attended her daughter in childbirth and the ac- 
couchement terminated fatally to both mother and 
child. Mrs. Corner was prosecuted for malpractise 
by the state but was acquitted when the facts were 
brought out that the cause of death was one which 
a medical practitioner could not have averted, 
namely hemorrhage. Certain members of the 
Association disagreed with Mrs. Eddy in respect 
to the propriety of certain proceedings relative to 
Mrs. Corner's defense. 

Although Mrs. Eddy did not approve of her 
students taking charge of the surgical part of ob- 
stetrical work unless they were surgeons or mid- 
wives duly qualified by the state requirements, she 
did not desert her student in time of trouble, and 
although the Association paid Mrs. Corner's ex- 
penditures for defense, — a matter of two hundred 
dollars, — the disagreement over the Corner case 
was what the restless element in the Boston church 
needed for a plausible excuse to seek the world 
and its freedom, and to desert the pure ideality of 
the fundamental statement of Christian Science 
found in the scientific statement of being. Mrs. 
Eddy did not engage in any spiritual wrestling with 
these rebellious students, though she did ask them 
to come to her in Christian love and state their 
grievances to her personally. As none of them did 
so, they were eventually dismissed, thirty-six mem- 
bers going out of a congregation of about two 
hundred. 



326 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Although their tactics had been successful in 
securing the so-called letters of dismissal, after their 
expulsion the seceding students declared they had 
considered a plan for expelling Mrs. Eddy from her 
own church and the Christian Scientist Association. 
However, the points held by Mrs. Eddy on this 
occasion and with which the belligerent students 
disagreed are to-day reckoned among the common- 
sense practises of Christian Science, and this inci- 
dent is an example of the numerous instances where 
the short-sightedness of the pupil has attempted to 
brush aside the more mature and accurate judgment 
of the teacher, and where Mrs. Eddy proved her 
worth as a leader of the Christian Science move- 
ment. With such deep-boring desire to explode 
the citadel of Christian Science faith and blow into 
the heavens its foundation stones, the insurrection- 
ists would have accomplished destruction had it 
been in human power to do so, and the dust of cen- 
turies might again have settled over the spiritual 
revelation, as Spofford had once foretold would be 
the result if Christian Science were demolished. 

"Under Divine Providence there can be no acci- 
dents," Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health," 
and the rebellion in the Boston church in 1888 was 
no more a fortuitous or calamitous occurrence 
than the rebellion in Lynn which resulted in the 
transplanting of the work to Boston, the establish- 
ment of the college and Journal, and the creation 
of the National Christian Scientist Association. 
Mrs. Eddy had safeguarded the text-book of 
Christian Science by copyrights, and in the months 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 327 

in which she waited for the culmination of the con- 
spiracy in the Boston church she turned over in her 
mind the many-sided problem of safeguarding the 
organization. She was once more submitting her- 
self for divine guidance, and in the sacred secrecy 
of such communion was evolving a plan by which 
security should be attained against explosive 
schism. 

Now the first step toward the masterly solution of 
this great problem of organization which confronted 
her was a loosening of all the bonds which appar- 
ently held her students together. With absolute 
reliance upon the underlying, irrevocable compact 
of spirit, which constitutes the "church invisible," 
Mrs. Eddy first closed the Metaphysical College 
and then a few months later dissolved the organiza- 
tion of the Boston church. 

She had discontinued teaching classes at the 
college in May, 1889, and on October 29 of that 
year she closed its doors. Its dissolution was 
accomplished after due deliberation and earnest 
discussion by a vote of the board of directors of the 
college corporation. In announcing its purpose the 
board presented to the public resolutions in which 
it thanked the state for its charter, the public for its 
patronage, and declared its everlasting gratitude to 
its president for her great and noble work. The 
teaching was henceforth to be done by the qualified 
students. 

In *' Retrospection and Introspection" Mrs. Eddy 
has given her clearly defined argument for this pro- 
cedure and it is an unmistakable disclaimer of 



828 THE LIFE OP MARY BAKER EDDY 

delight in personal success. She says: ''The appre- 
hension of what has been, and must be, the final 
outcome of material organization, which wars with 
Love's spiritual compact, caused me to dread the 
unprecedented popularity of my College. Students 
from all over our continent and from Europe were 
flooding the school. At this time there were over 
three hundred applications from persons desiring 
to enter the college, and applicants were rapidly 
increasing. Example had shown the dangers aris- 
ing from being placed on earthly pinnacles, and 
Christian Science shuns whatever involves material 
means for the promotion of spiritual ends." ^ 

It was the first way-mark of withdrawal. The 
dangers arising from personal adulation were in a 
thousand ways made apparent to Mrs. Eddy and 
the more she requested her students to look away 
from her and fix their eyes on truth, the more she 
was made to feel that danger of apotheosis which 
desired to set her on ''earthly pinnacles." Ap- 
pealing to Caesar seemed to be a fixed concept of a 
human sort among the students which required the 
most thorough-going denial. As the Romans would 
have made Nero a god, so the students seemed bent 
on making their spiritual leader a Caesar of egotism, 
a peculiar reversal in human deduction. Mrs. Eddy 
was obliged to publish in the Journal the following 
notice : 

I shall not be consulted verbally or through letters 
as to the following: Whose advertisement shall or 
shall not appear in the Journal, 

^ "Retrospection and Introspection," p. 67. 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 329 

The matter that should be published in the 
Journal. 

On marriage, divorce, or family affairs of any 
kind. 

On the choice of pastors for churches. 

On difficulties if there should be any between 
students of Christian Science. 

On who shall be admitted as members or dropped 
from the membership of Christian Science churches. 

On disease, or the treatment of the sick. 

But I shall love all mankind and work for their 
welfare. 

Each and every one of these disclaimers of ab- 
solutism were sincere; they were avowals of a 
steadfast purpose to refuse to ascend a dictator's 
throne. If it had for a time seemed wise for her to 
direct and guide the affairs of the church and asso- 
ciation, experience had shown her in no unmis- 
takable way the misconstruction which wilful human 
perversion may place upon such direction. The 
rebellious students of that year had announced as 
one of their grievances the opinion that Mrs. Eddy 
was too arbitrary in the conduct of the Christian 
Scientist Association. Such a statement she re- 
ceived as a premonitory signal. It was a mailed 
hand threatening Love's dominion. Between those 
who would set her up and those who would drag 
her down, the founder of Christian Science stood 
serene in the consciousness of spiritual insight. She 
would not desert her post or be driven from it until 
she had led her students into the ways of self- 
direction. 

But withdrawal was not desertion, and with- 



330 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

drawal more and more occupied her thoughts as a 
means to the end of estabhshing the impersonal 
guidance of the church. Certain personal and 
family matters crowded upon her for attention. 
She who had given so much to the world must con- 
sider somewhat her own affairs before taking up 
the problem, the great problem of the ''church 
visible." 

During the difficulties of 1888 which may be real- 
ized as the clamoring of three hundred disappointed 
students who would have Mrs. Eddy to teach them 
and no other and the half hundred rebellious stud- 
ents who would rend if possible the local church, 
George Glover, Mrs. Eddy's long- wandering son 
was present in Boston with his wife and children. 
Mrs. Eddy had seen her son but once before since 
he had been separated from her in his infancy. 
Having located him in 1879 in Minnesota, she had 
sent him a telegram requesting him to come to her. 
He was then a man thirty-five years of age. He 
came to Boston and visited her and Mr. Eddy at the 
home of the Choates where she was then residing 
temporarily. 

While on his brief visit to Boston, Mrs. Eddy 
had studied the character of her long-alienated son 
with the eyes of maternal solicitude, and also the 
detached sense of independent individuality. Was 
this boy a Baker or a Glover ? Moreover, was he a 
teachable man.? In rehearsing his experiences on 
this visit to his mother in 1879, Glover is said to 
have since related to a newspaper correspondent 
that for some strange reason his mother would not 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 331 

hear of his returning to his Western home and that 
he stayed on for several weeks with her while she 
endeavored to teach him Christian Science, — which 
he modestly acknowledged he '*made a mess of." 
But having heard considerable about Richard Ken- 
nedy and his misuse of the science of Mind, and 
feeling that Kennedy was harassing his mother with 
false reports of her teaching, Glover one day, with- 
out revealing his plans to his mother, visited Ken- 
nedy's offices and, according to Glover's alleged 
statement, threatened him with a revolver. Ac- 
cording to the newspaper which quotes Mr. Glover 
he declared that he told Kennedy he knew of his 
"black art tricks" to ruin his mother and he meant 
to stop him. 

** Mother seemed very much surprised when I 
told her what I had done," George Glover is said 
to have stated in March, 1907, referring to the visit 
of 1879. "But she did not scold me and in a few 
days she consented to let me return home to the 
West and to my wife and little son." 

How clearly George Glover had shown to his 
mother after weeks of effort to educate him, to 
teach him Christian Science, the ungovernable, 
untameable spirit of the man of the plains, no one 
but himself had ever told, if indeed he did relate 
his experiences on his visit East as quoted. Richard 
Kennedy absolutely denied the occurrence. But 
whether George Glover did bully him or did not, 
and whether or not he recounted a fiction to his 
mother and later to the press, his nature is shown 
to have been alien to her nature, to have been 



S32 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

impervious to her doctrine. Destiny still parted 
them with an insurmountable barrier. Hungering for 
the plains, restless for the saddle, his leathern holster 
bulging beneath his coat, his hand nervously seeking 
his hip at the slightest altercation, what could a 
woman of sixty do with a man of middle age, settled 
in his habits ? Here was no longer the problem of 
mother and son. Authority and obedience were as 
a dead letter. Time had set its seal upon him as a 
man and an individual. 

Departing for the West, he went over the great 
divide in human concepts for another ten years, but 
in 1887 sent his mother a characteristically casual 
note stating that he intended coming East to pay 
her a visit. In a letter which Glover says he re- 
ceived from his mother dated October 31, 1887, she 
replied to her son in words pregnant of her appre- 
hensions with regard to his character. ''I must 
have quiet in my home," she wrote, "and it will not 
be pleasant for you in Boston." She told him that 
the Choates were no longer with her. ''You are 
not what I had hoped to find you," she continued, 
''and I cannot have you come. . . . The world, 
the flesh, and evil I am at war with. . . . Boston is 
the last place in the world for you or your family. 
When I retire into private life, then I can receive 
you if you are reformed, but not otherwise. I say 
this to you, not to any one else. I would not injure 
you any more than myself." 

But this letter which speaks volumes of maternal 
regret appears to have had no effect in deterring 
George Glover from seeking the mother whom he 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 333 

had disregarded for years. She was now nearly 
seventy years of age, spirituaHzed by years of self- 
abnegation and religious devotion. He was in his 
forty-fifth year and hardened in the ways of the 
flesh. He presented himself with the confidence 
of filial relationship. Yes, he was her son, and 
she received him as such. She provided for him a 
residence in Chelsea. With his children he visited 
her at her home and he attended the church and 
was cordially received by its members. Mrs. Eddy 
appeared upon the platform with the children around 
her and lovingly presented them to the world and 
her church. 

After several months of enjoying himself in the 
reflected glory of his mother, George Glover with 
his family again returned to the West. He had 
taken no step to come to his mother's standard of life 
and she had not urged him or repelled him. But 
she had studied him and reflected on the joy it would 
have been to her to have been able to find in him 
a son fitted to carry out certain demands of her work. 
Such reflection carried with it regret and finally 
resulted in an effort to find among her students one 
who could bear to her the relation of a dutiful, 
obedient, and worthy son, one who would perform 
the acts of filial respect and service that would in- 
sure her the nucleus of a spiritual household. In 
the enjoyment of such a home, quiet domesticity 
would take its natural course and as the years re- 
volved she might withdraw to the heights of con- 
templation, putting off one by one the claims of 
the world. 



334 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Pursuing this idea in November, 1888, Mrs. Eddy 
legally adopted Dr. Ebenezer Johnson Foster in 
the Suffolk County (Massachusetts) Probate Court, 
stating as her reasons in the proceedings before 
Judge McKim that he was associated with her in 
business, home life, and life work, and that she 
needed his interested care and relationship. The 
plea was granted and Dr. Foster added Eddy to 
his name and became her son. This effort toward 
parental relationship was not a success, and may 
be briefly set forth. 

Dr. Foster came from a small town in Vermont. 
He was a graduate of the Hahneman Medical Col- 
lege in Philadelphia and for two years a member of 
the clinics of the Blockley Hospital and of the Penn- 
sylvania Hospital. He was later a member of 
the Vermont State Homeopathic Medical Society. 
Holding diplomas from both the regular and the 
homeopathic schools of medicine, he was attracted 
to Christian Science by the healing of a close friend 
who had been an old army comrade. He came to 
Boston an enthusiastic inquirer in the fall of 1887 
and took a course of lessons under Mrs. Eddy's 
instruction at the college. Before its close he taught 
one term in the college. Previous to his adoption he 
resided in her Commonwealth avenue home to- 
gether with other students. He was one of that 
group of intimate students among whom were Julia 
Bartlett, Calvin Frye, Captain and Mrs. Eastaman, 
and William B. Johnson. 

Dr. Foster-Eddy was an agreeable and accom- 
plished man of forty with a clear, well-trained mind 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 335 

and the enthusiasm for work which w^as so neces- 
sary in the multitude of duties pressing upon all. 
He remained with Mrs. Eddy until 1896. In 1892 
she made him her publisher when she removed 
William G. Nixon from that office. Dr. Foster- 
Eddy then lived at the Commonwealth avenue house, 
though Mrs. Eddy was residing in Concord. Away 
from her personal influence, he was not as attentive 
to business as the requirements of his office de- 
manded, and he indulged in certain fopperies which 
brought down upon him scathing criticism from 
other students, not entirely unwarranted. It be- 
came necessary for Mrs. Eddy to remove him from 
the publishing business in the spring of 1896, when 
she made Joseph Armstrong, a former banker of 
Kansas, her publisher. 

Mrs. Eddy then directed Dr. Foster-Eddy to go 
to Philadelphia to carry out certain plans in the 
work of the church. She gave him a letter to present 
to the Philadelphia church and minute instructions, 
but he did not carry out her directions. As her per- 
sonal agent he misrepresented her and became 
persona non grata in that city. The Philadelphia 
church wrote a letter concerning him to Mrs. Eddy 
and she recalled him, but he did not return to her 
at once. He first went to Washington on a pleasure 
trip and finally presented himself at Pleasant View, 
bursting with a story of his fancied wrongs. Mrs. 
Eddy received him in the library and heard him out ; 
then she left him in silence. He quitted the house 
and returned to Boston where she sent him a letter 
of admonition, kindly worded, but unmistakable in 



336 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

its rebuke. Instead of returning to Pleasant VieWj. 
Dr. Foster-Eddy went West, traveled for a long 
time, and eventually returned to his old home in 
Vermont. Mrs. Eddy made no charge against him, 
nor did she ask for an explanation. She did not, 
however, erase him from her memory and in due 
time made a monetary provision for him. 

It was after the adoption of Dr. Foster that Mrs. 
Eddy began looking about for a permanent home 
removed from Boston. In the early spring of 1889 
Dr. Foster persuaded her to go to Barre, Vermont, 
with a view to spending the summer in the moun- 
tains. He preceded her there and engaged a fur- 
nished house, and Mrs. Eddy with Miss Martha 
Morgan, who was then her housekeeper, and Mr. 
Frye followed when arrangements were completed. 
She did not, however, remain long, for the surround- 
ings were not desirable. Dr. Foster returned to 
Boston and selected a house in Roslindale, a suburb 
of Boston. This house Mrs. Eddy occupied for a 
short time; but this situation, too, proved not de- 
sirable. For as Barre was too remote from the 
center of affairs which she must still direct, Roslin- 
dale was too accessible to the interruptions of 
visitors. 

While on her way to and from Barre, Mrs. Eddy 
had passed through her native town, Concord, New 
Hampshire. Its beauty and its dignity appealed to 
her so powerfully that she sojourned for a time there 
while the Roslindale property was being negoti- 
ated for. When Roslindale failed as a satisfactory 
habitation, her agreeable experience in Concord 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 337 

returned to her mind as an argument for its selec- 
tion as an abiding place. But she would not again 
make a hasty decision or permit others to do so for 
her in so important a matter as a permanent home. 
So she decided to live for a time in a furnished house 
in Concord and look about her for the desirable 
home. 

It was in the spring of 1889 that she retired to Con- 
cord, carrying out her purpose of withdrawal from 
the personal direction of the students in Boston. 
In Concord she resided at 62 North State street for 
a few months. While living there she took her daily 
drives in and around the little New Hampshire 
capital, so dear to her because of her earliest recol- 
lections of childhood. From one of those drives she 
returned by the road (now, through her gift to the 
city, a macadamized avenue) which stretches along 
the crest of a valley to the Southwest from the city. 
Halting her carriage about three quarters of a mile 
outside the capital, she looked out over the valley 
in contemplation. Mrs. Eddy saw here the vision 
of a home remote and yet accessible. She saw Bow, 
her birthplace, nestling in the ridge of blue hills 
away to the East and she discerned the hazy outline 
of Monadnock, far to the Southwest, rearing its 
august and lonely head. Below the pleasant upland 
upon which she stood lay all the broad valley, like 
the Valley of Decision, which her years had spanned, 
and doubtless she saw with the eloquent prophet 
of old "multitudes, multitudes in that Valley of 
Decision." 

What Mrs. Eddy beheld in vision she brought to 

22 



338 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

pass. Land was bought uniting two estates and 
the old house encumbering the spot where she 
stood when she made her determination was moved 
back and under the direction of her student, Mr. Ira 
O. Knapp, rebuilt into a modest, modern country 
home. This place Mrs. Eddy named Pleasant View, 
and there she resided from 1892 until 1908, a period 
of about fifteen years. Those who have never seen 
this charming, idyllic spot can picture it by imagin- 
ing a broad sweep of green acres, sloping gently to 
a little lake, a ribbon of river, and a line of hills 
away to the East. The house standing back from 
the road, surrounded by a well kept lawn, was given 
the picturesque addition of a small tower and broad 
Eastern veranda, with an unpretentious portico over 
the front entrance. 

Within the soft gray-green walls of the simple 
frame dwelling a shining order, peace, and dignity 
came to prevail. Mrs. Laura Sargent, a student of 
Mrs. Eddy's first class in Chicago, came from her 
home in Wisconsin to reside with Mrs. Eddy as 
companion, and remained with her continuously. 
And to her loving attendance much of the quiet 
order of that home may be attributed. A gentle 
veil of seclusion descended over Pleasant View, 
securing to it a quiet and dignity necessary to the 
detached life of contemplation, a life wherein things 
temporal may stand forth in their relation to things 
eternal as types of spiritual significance. It was the 
life of brooding love, a life of the highest rarity in 
human experience, wherein heaven leans and kisses 
earth. Here Mrs. Eddy spent the years of perfecting 




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WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 339 

the type of organization under which she conceived 
the spiritual compact of her church to rest. 

It was not without action, however, that she 
brought about the firm foundation of a Christian 
Science church which should be unassailable as the 
rock of her doctrine. Mrs. Eddy had been clearing 
the way before her for an activity which was to 
eventuate in the building of the Mother Church in 
Boston, not simply as a structure of stone, but as a 
structure of legal compact from which should flow 
order in the conduct of church affairs. Her first 
step in this work was to request that the local Boston 
church dissolve its organization. After this was 
done in obedience to her request she published in 
the Journal for February, 1890, the following 
notice : 

The dissolution of the visible organization of the 
church is the sequence and complement of that 
of the college corporation and association. The 
college disappeared that the spirit of Christ might 
have freer course among its students and all who 
come into the understanding of Divine Science. 
The bonds of the church were thrown away so that 
its members might assemble themselves together 
to ''provoke one another to good works" in the bond 
only of love. 

With the National Christian Scientist Associa- 
tion adjourned in New York this same year, the 
bonds of organization were entirely loosed and what 
the future held in store for them Christian Scien- 
tists were unable to discern. They had now to live 
the life and perform the works which a living faith 



340 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

demanded of them, and to trust that their teacher, 
withdrawn from the clash of petty affairs, was work- 
ing out a plan by which they might manifest to the 
world a perfect unity of purpose. And she was 
working out such a plan, — meantime by letters and 
communications in the Journal encouraging her 
students all over the country to organize local 
churches. Thus detached organization was pro- 
gressing with wonderful strides throughout the 
country. 

In Boston the church was homeless, but still hold- 
ing meetings, which now convened in Chickering 
Hall. This church had endeavored to purchase a 
lot of ground in Falmouth street as early as 1886 
with the idea of erecting an edifice thereon, but 
through various dissensions and rebellions it had 
been unable to complete its purchase so that in 1889 
a heavy mortgage still hung over its head. In De- 
cember, 1889, Mrs. Eddy personally satisfied this 
mortgage and gave the lot in trust to her student, 
Ira O. Knapp. Mr. Knapp reconveyed the property 
to three trustees, namely, Alfred Lang, Marcellus 
Monroe, and William G. Nixon. The purpose of 
forming this trusteeship was that donations might 
be received for a building fund from loving students 
throughout the field. 

The building fund had been growing slowly but 
surely ; now a hitch in the mind of one of the trus- 
tees brought it to a sudden stop. It was William 
G. Nixon, Mrs. Eddy's publisher, who could not be 
satisfied with the ultimate purpose of the trustee- 
ship, and demanded that the title of the land be 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 341 

scrutinized by legal eyes. A paroxysm of doubt 
among his fellow trustees followed with the result 
that all surrendered their trusteeship and returned 
to the donors the funds which had accrued for the 
church building. 

Undismayed by this action Mrs. Eddy rose to the 
demands of the situation. She employed an attorney 
to search the statutes of Massachusetts for a law by 
which her contemplated gift to the church might be 
made good and valid. Her lawyer very shortly put 
his finger upon the necessary legal enactment, a 
statute seldom resorted to, which seemed a provi- 
dential decree for this emergency. This statute 
provided that trustees might be deemed a body cor- 
porate for the purpose of holding grants and dona- 
tions without the formal organization of a church. 
So on September 1, 1892, Mrs. Eddy again conveyed 
her gift of ground, which was now valued at twenty 
thousand dollars, to four new trustees who were Ira 
O. Knapp, William B. Johnson, Joseph S. Easta- 
man, and Stephen A. Chase. These trustees pledged 
themselves to erect upon this lot a church building. 

That no doubt might exist in the minds of her 
students throughout the United States and elsewhere 
that her purpose was entirely unselfish and that it 
was for the ends to which they all looked, Mrs. Eddy 
now counseled a reorganization of the Boston 
church as a Mother Church, which should draw 
its membership from Christian Science churches 
throughout the world. Thus by her advice twelve 
students came together and perfected such an or- 
ganization which so satisfied the wishes of her 



342 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

students that over fifteen hundred members united 
before the first annual meeting, held in October, 
1893. 

Now the building fund began to grow as it had 
not done before. The donations returned by the 
doubting Thomas were sent back doubled and 
trebled. In order to secure the more rapid com- 
pletion of the Mother Church edifice forty students 
each contributed one thousand dollars in 1894. 
Mrs. Eddy privately summoned her student, Joseph 
Armstrong, to Pleasant View, placing in his hands 
the power of decision in vexatious questions that 
might arise, and through his able, loyal, patient 
direction the original Mother Church was com- 
pleted in every perfection of detail on the night of 
December 30, 1894. 

Thus was the great labor of her mind during the 
first five years of her retirement brought to a satis- 
factory conclusion. The little local church, which 
in 1888 had threatened to eject the founder of the 
Christian Science movement, was no more; it had 
been dissolved and swallowed up in that larger 
organization which, in the provisos of its trust deed, 
pledged itself to teach nothing within the church 
walls which should not be in strict harmony with 
the doctrine and practise of Christian Science as 
set forth by Mary Baker G. Eddy in ''Science and 
Health with Key to the Scriptures." The trustees, 
moreover, now constituted the board of directors 
of the Mother Church and they elected Mrs. Eddy 
pastor emeritus. The church was dedicated Janu- 
ary 5, 1895. 



WITHDRAWAL FROM THE WORLD 343 

So had Mrs. Eddy ably directed her students by 
love that was wise and counsel that was firm in the 
midst of dereliction, stubborn opposition, revolt, 
and schism to that state of mind and that perfection 
of organization that they found themselves self- 
operative under provisos which would prevent their 
straying from her teaching. And in doing this she 
succeeded in withdrawing her own personality from 
the clashing world of events, leaving only Truth en- 
throned for ruler. What wonder that with one 
accord the church bestowed upon her the loving 
title of Leader ! 



CHAPTER XXI 

THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 

ALTHOUGH Mrs. Eddy had withdrawn from 
active participation in the work of her church, 
her withdrawal was in the nature of retirement 
and not seclusion. She did not go into a selfish 
privacy at Pleasant View, but remained actively en- 
gaged in many duties which her position required 
of her. She no longer edited the Journal, preached 
from a pulpit, or taught regular classes, but she con- 
tinued to contribute articles to the Journal, to send 
annual messages to her church, and to receive those 
who had the right to her counsel. She made several 
visits to Boston in the interest of the Mother Church 
and received annually for several years large num- 
bers of communicants from many parts of the coun- 
try. She prepared articles for the press on request, 
and, besides revising her book ''Science and Health" 
from year to year, gathered together and edited some 
of her scattered articles which she published under 
the title "Miscellaneous Writings." 

Life at Pleasant View fell into that regularity 
which facilitates the highest order of usefulness. Mrs. 
Eddy had living with her a quite numerous house- 
hold. Mrs. Laura Sargent, her companion, took 
active charge of the household regime, and her sweet- 
tempered direction of the servants, her ceaseless 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 345 

inspection of the domestic machinery, made affairs 
move with pleasant exactness. Miss Clara Shannon 
of Montreal was another inmate of the household 
who devoted special attention to Mrs. Eddy's per- 
sonal wants. Mrs. Pamelia J. Leonard, of Brooklyn, 
spent many months of several years at Pleasant View 
assisting in the work of church advancement, work 
which Mrs. Eddy never neglected. Mr. Frye con- 
tinued in his faithful service of steward and secretary 
combined, and his duties were of the most diverse 
nature, varying from ordering supplies, keeping ac- 
counts, and transmitting Mrs. Eddy's directions to 
her gardeners and coachman, to assisting in handling 
her heavy mail. 

If Mr. Frye and Mrs. Sargent were the most 
constant of Mrs. Eddy's attendants in her retire- 
ment, there were many other students called upon 
to serve their Leader, and such service was always 
regarded in the nature of an honor. There were 
many assistant secretaries and many assistant com- 
panions, but as to the personnel of that roll of honor 
it is not necessary to make any further statement 
than the plain and straightforward one once made 
by Mrs. Eddy, that no one was ever called to Pleas- 
ant View for discipline. They were called there 
because they had shown by their work elsewhere a 
high order of usefulness. 

Mrs. Eddy maintained her habit of rising early 
through all the years of retirement. She rose about 
six o'clock in summer and before seven o'clock in 
winter. She had an hour for prayerful meditation 
three times daily, morning, noon, and night. In the 



S46 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

morning it was her custom to walk through the 
various rooms of her house on a tour of friendly 
inspection, whereon she not infrequently directed 
some change in the adjustment of furnishings and 
draperies; but mainly the tour was one of cheerful 
sociability when she talked with every member of 
her household, the laundress and the gardener's 
assistant not being neglected in words of commenda- 
tion and sallies of wit or spiritual admonition. The 
love and reverence in which all held her made her 
coming an anticipation of each day. 

After her regular morning exercise (which at 
Pleasant View was in fine weather frequently a walk 
about the artificial pond which some of her students 
had caused to be built in the lower garden, and on 
less agreeable days an hour's pacing of the covered 
veranda) Mrs. Eddy returned to her study where her 
secretary brought her letters. After dinner, which it 
was her custom to take in the middle of the day, she 
usually went for a drive. As the daily drive was the 
only occasion on which she was seen in public for 
many years, it became a matter of public interest 
and her Concord neighbors took pleasure in meet- 
ing her brougham, drawn by a sober pair of black 
horses. They would bow their friendly salutations 
or occasionally, when she ordered her coachman to 
stop and summoned them with a kindly and courte- 
ous gesture, would approach her carriage and shake 
hands with the venerable religionist. 

During the nineties Mrs. Eddy made several visits 
to Boston. After the completion of the original 
Mother Church she made a journey especially to 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 347 

inspect it, her heart yearning over this gift which 
she had so generously shared with her students in 
presenting to the organization. On April 1, 1895, 
she went to Boston unannounced, with her compan- 
ion and her secretary, and spent that night in the 
rooms designed for her especial use in the church 
building. These rooms are in the tower of the church 
and consist of a study, a bedroom, and a dressing- 
room. They are exquisitely fitted with every neces- 
sary appointment, the furnishing being a gift of the 
children of the church. 

On May 26 of the same year she again visited The 
Mother Church and preached from its pulpit, and 
in February, 1896, she also preached in The Mother 
Church, returning the same afternoon to Concord. 
On Monday, June 5, 1899, Mrs. Eddy came to 
Boston from Concord and spent the night at her 
Commonwealth avenue house, then occupied by 
Septimus J. Hanna, who was the first reader in The 
Mother Church at that time. The church held its 
annual meeting in Tremont Temple the following 
day and in the afternoon she appeared on the plat- 
form and addressed the meeting. Judge Hanna 
escorted Mrs. Eddy to the platform and introduced 
her, the students arising and quietly saluting her 
with waving handkerchiefs. She spoke briefly on 
the text from Malachi, "Prove me now herewith, 
saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the 
windows of heaven." 

Mrs. Eddy avoided a public reception by with- 
drawing from the platform before the meeting 
adjourned and returning the same afternoon to 



348 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Concord. This does not mean that she was unwill- 
ing to receive her students when she could fittingly 
arrange to do so. At the June communion service 
in 1895 a telegram from her was read to the congre- 
gation in which she invited all members who desired 
to call upon her to go to Pleasant View on the fol- 
lowing day. About two hundred responded to this 
invitation, and Mrs. Eddy threw her house open, 
receiving them with great kindness, shaking hands 
with all, and conversing with many at length. This 
general reception was repeated in 1897, when she 
was obliged to receive nearly three thousand guests. 
She could not personally greet such a large com- 
pany, so she received them en masse, making a 
lengthy address and having refreshments served upon 
her lawn. 

Mrs. Eddy sent no message of invitation in 1898, 
but a great many students made the pilgrimage to 
Concord nevertheless, and were obliged to content 
themselves with seeing her start on her drive. It 
became generally known to her church that their 
Leader was not pleased to have these annual visits 
take the appearance to the world of a pilgrimage of 
adoration, for it had begun to be spoken of as though 
she had withdrawn from daily intercourse with them 
only to secure a personal adulation greater than that 
accorded to any living woman. This of all things 
Mrs. Eddy desired to avoid, for the charge of apo- 
theosis lurked behind any demonstration of her 
students' affection. So for several years such visits 
were discouraged. 

But in 1901, the year in which Mrs. Eddy was 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 349 

eighty years of age, she again permitted the students 
to gather at Pleasant View after the June com- 
munion. On this occasion three special trains, 
leaving Boston for Concord, carried her guests. 
In June, 1903, several special trains carried about 
10,000 Christian Scientists to Concord. As the 
great multitude approached Pleasant View mem- 
bers of her household went to the gates and re- 
quested the students to enter the grounds and Mrs. 
Eddy sent word that she would address them from 
the balcony outside her study. When she entered 
the balcony she stood looking down on the great 
throng of people for a moment in silence, then 
stretched out her hands to them in a gesture char- 
acteristic of her great heart's love, seeming to say 
in that mute appeal, ''All that I .have I give unto 
you." She spoke briefly, addressing them as though 
they were indeed the lambs of the Lord whom she 
would feed with heavenly manna. Here and there 
a student wept; all hung upon her words and her 
voice carried to the remotest listener. As she stepped 
back into her room, many began to write down the 
words they remembered, and as they compared their 
notes, each one seemed to have caught a special and 
personal message. This was the last time Mrs. 
Eddy received her students en masse at Pleasant 
View. 

There was, however, in 1904 a large concourse of 
students in Concord to celebrate the dedication of 
the Concord church, a structure of virgin granite 
near the central square of the capitol. This church 
edifice was the gift of Mrs. Eddy to her students in 
that city, and is one of the most beautiful of the 



S50 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

many beautiful Christian Science churches in Amer- 
ica. About two thousand students gathered for this 
occasion, but they respected Mrs. Eddy's wish not 
to haunt her drive or to visit Pleasant View. They 
assembled in front of the church and awaited her 
visit to them. From her carriage she made an ad- 
dress which the perfect silence of the assemblage 
made clearly audible. She directly addressed her- 
self to the president of the church as representing 
the church body, but her remarks were in the nature 
of a general greeting. 

When Mrs. Eddy pubhshed "Miscellaneous Writ- 
ings" in 1897, she requested in the March Journal 
that her students cease teaching Christian Science 
for one year. She had labored assiduously on this 
new publication, gathering her scattered writings 
out of the Journal and from many messages and 
class lessons, also from some letters on special sub- 
jects; and she believed the book would better pre- 
pare the minds of persons coming into the faith to 
understand the Christian Science text-book than 
the efforts of students. The book met with great 
success, for it was like a personal meeting with the 
Leader, full of the animated flashes of her wit and 
the quiet touches of her sympathetic understand- 
ing. 

Although this work was sent out as a sort of pri- 
mary class-book, it was eagerly read by the students 
who had gone through many classes with her as 
teacher, and soon became the most cherished of her 
writings after ''Science and Health." Its appear- 
ance gave rise to a demand for just one more class. 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 351 

and Mrs. Eddy consented to receive as students a 
number of the petitioners in November, 1898. A 
class of sixty-one members was organized in Con- 
cord. Among those who joined were members from 
England, Scotland, and Canada. Mrs. Eddy re- 
fused remuneration for her instruction, which she 
gave in the Concord Christian Science hall, and she 
taught but two sessions. The lessons occurred on 
November 21 and 22, the first lasting for two hours, 
the second for four. The students were abundantly 
satisfied with what was pronounced her "wondrous 
teaching." 

Among the members of this last class was the 
editor of a newspaper in Concord who by becoming 
her student became her personal friend. Another 
editor became her student by reading her text-book, 
and they were ever after during her residence there 
welcome guests at her house. This close relation- 
ship with the two most prominent intelligencers of 
the city made Concord feel that the whole city was 
on terms of intimacy with the venerable Leader of 
the Christian Science Church. Her views on many 
public questions were obtained by them and printed 
in their papers and, whereas she had been too modest 
to acclaim her benevolences, they were not slow to 
do so, and Concord became aware that Mrs. Eddy 
was supplying a sum to the state fair association for 
the relief of the poor, and frequently made donations 
for hospitals and religious associations outside her 
church, that she had given the city a well-paved 
boulevard and contributed large sums for projects 
of the state of New Hampshire. She was no longer 



352 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

a private personage, but one of the capitol's best 
known and most public-spirited citizens. 

The world which had been so long in recognizing 
her seemed at last ready to acknowledge her work 
as an important factor in the progress of latter-day 
civilization. It was women who conferred the first 
general honor upon her, an honor quite apart from 
that accruing to her by reason of her religious leader- 
ship. The Daughters of the American Revolution 
made her a member of their body in February, 1893, 
when the wife of the president of the United States, 
Mrs. Harrison, was chief officer of the organization. 
And it was at Mrs. Harrison's request that the honor 
was bestowed. 

Newspapers and magazines now frequently be- 
sought her for interviews and communications on 
important matters. She occasionally acceded to the 
latter requests, giving her views on the War with 
Spain, and, after the death of President McKinley, 
paying her tribute to his noble life. On the occa- 
sions of public festivals and celebrations she also 
gave on request her views as to the meaning of the 
Puritan Thanksgiving Day and its significance to 
this generation and the true meaning and best cele- 
bration of the spirit of Christmas. On such ques- 
tions of public morals as marriage and divorce she 
responded to requests for her opinions. 

But to the interviewer in person, Mrs. Eddy was 
not accessible. Her reasons for refusing to receive 
press correspondents in general were not based on 
selfishness or indifference to public interest, but 
rather that she might not be represented as self- 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 353 

seeking. She had estabHshed a pubHcation com- 
mittee while still active in the church work, and this 
committee had extended its offices to every important 
city in America, and of late years to foreign cities. 
It was not Mrs. Eddy's wish to perform an act of 
supererogation in giving out news of the church. 
Concerning her own life, she did not think it neces- 
sary to admit the world too intimately into her per- 
sonal affairs, for to admit the world would be to 
make a parade of the simplest private virtues and 
devotions. Acting as she believed with the highest 
propriety, she consistently refused an audience to 
the special correspondent. 

Because of this insistent privacy at Pleasant View 
a rumor grew up in the newspaper offices that the 
founder of the new religious faith, which was estab- 
lished on the tenet that God is able to heal all our 
infirmities, was herself a victim of infirmity. What 
that infirmity might be could only be surmised and 
speculated upon by the fertile brains of ingenious 
reporters. In May of 1905 Mrs. Eddy broke her 
long- continued rule and granted an interview to a 
representative of the Boston Herald. On that oc- 
casion she said : "All that I ask of the world is time, 
time to assimilate myself to God. I would take all 
the world to my heart if that were possible; but I 
can only ask my friends to look away from my per- 
sonality and fix their eyes on Truth." So gracious, 
so gentle, so detached, so luminous was her person- 
ality, that the interviewer could not press upon her 
the many questions framed for the occasion, but 
submitted them to Mrs. Eddy's secretaries for her 

23 



354 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

to take up in a more leisurely way with them, when 
she could dictate her replies. So humbly cognizant 
of this yielding on the part of the reporter was Mrs. 
Eddy, that she sent to the Boston Herald a kind 
tribute of appreciation. 

But this interview did not satisfy a certain element 
of the press of America. The picture of a saintly 
character, living a contemplative and spiritual life 
of retirement did not accord with its preconceived 
notion, false as its own mental vision was. It 
yearned to press home upon the minds of the world 
its own image in a dramatic, first-page " story," and 
for that end a newspaper of New York decided to 
make such a powerful demand for an audience that 
it should not be gainsaid. The occasion for making 
this demand seemed to the newspaper mind to arise 
at the dedication of the new Mother Church in 
Boston. 

In 1902 Mrs. Eddy had suggested in her message 
to the church the need for a larger church edifice in 
Boston, and at the annual meeting the church voted 
to raise any part of $2,000,000 required for the erec- 
tion of such an edifice. The work of clearing land 
adjacent to the original Mother Church began in 
October, 1903. The corner-stone of the new church 
building was laid in 1904, and like a miracle the 
great structure of white granite and Bedford stone 
began to arise from the heart of the city. In 1906 
it lifted its white dome, a serene symbol of faith, 
above all the silrrounding buildings, visible from far 
and near, a crown of peace. This church was ded- 
cated in June, 1906, when about thirty thousand 




^ c 



S 
H 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 355 

Christian Scientists filled the city of Boston and took 
part in the six successive services of communion. 

The Christian Scientists who had come to Boston 
to see the Mother Church dedicated remained to 
attend the Wednesday evening meeting at which 
testimonies of Christian Science healing were given. 
The great temple was crowded from floor to dome 
and overflow meetings were held in the original 
Mother Church and in four public halls. Many 
who were not Christian Scientists were amazed lis- 
teners to the outpouring of testimonies from every 
part of the great auditorium. Men and women arose 
in their places on the floor of the church and in the 
first and second balconies. As each arose he called 
the name of his city and waited his turn to tell of 
the miracle of health and virtue wrought in his life 
as a result of the study of Christian Science. The 
names of the cities called up the near and the far of 
the civilized world — Liverpool, Galveston, St. 
Petersburg, San Francisco, Paris, New York, 
Atlanta, and Portland. There were negroes as well 
as white men in that audience ; there were French, 
German, and Scandinavian; there were army offi- 
cers from Great Britain, and members of the British 
nobility, Americans of great wealth, jurists, former 
doctors and clergymen, teachers, clerks, day la- 
borers. It was like a verberation of an army with 
banners. And not only of the vanquishment of 
cancers, consumption, broken limbs, malignant dis- 
eases, and paralysis did these votaries of Christian 
Science testify, but of poverty overcome, victory 
gained over drunkenness, morphine, and immoral 



356 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

lives. It was a triumphant assertion of the health 
and power of spiritual living. 

Who now would lay finger upon the character of 
the founder of such a living faith ? Who now would 
say that she had not taught a creed by which men 
can live and ennoble their lives ? Who would be- 
grudge her her hard-won right to retirement, peace, 
and serenity.? It would be difficult to believe, did 
not all the world know, that in October of this same 
year two representatives of a New York newspaper 
did present themselves at Pleasant View and demand 
an audience with the venerable founder then in her 
eighty-fifth year. So churlish and so threatening 
was their demand, so steeped were they in a strange 
suspicion, that the faithful protectors of Mrs. Eddy's 
home life knew not what to say. The preposterous 
assertions that Mrs. Eddy was no longer living 
seemed to require the reproof of her presence, and 
yet to introduce such violent accusers to the saintly 
Leader seemed out of the question. Mrs. Eddy 
herself solved the difficulty, when the matter was 
laid before her, by saying that she would see not 
only them, but with them her neighbor across the 
way, that by his testimony the unbelieving reporters 
might be convinced that they were talking with the 
veritable Mary Baker Eddy. 

The interview was brief, but the reporters were 
given ample time to ask the questions they desired. 
The turbulence of their quest, the malignity of their 
purpose, caused the venerable woman a slight trem- 
ulousness as she arose to greet them; a flush 
mounted her cheeks and she leaned momentarily 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 357 

upon the table at which she had been writing when 
they entered. Upon such evidences of natural emo- 
tion they based a story of absolute decrepitude and 
they did not spare her silvered head from indignity. 
The lurid story these writers gave to the world was 
that Mrs. Eddy could not possibly drive abroad in 
her carriage and therefore must be impersonated 
by some other gray-haired woman many years her 
junior. They declared that she did not manage her 
business, and was controlled mentally and physi- 
cally by a designing clique who lived in her house 
and humbugged her church. 

The vilification of a blameless life smote the public 
consciousness of the entire country. Far from feel- 
ing that the New York paper had performed a clever 
journalistic feat, the press of the country repudiated 
it with loathing and scorn. But with characteristic 
American enterprise, it sent representatives to Con- 
cord, New Hampshire, on the very day of the publi- 
cation of the story, Sunday, October 28, 1906. The 
Associated Press, the Publishers Press, all the large 
newspapers of Boston and New York had represen- 
tatives at Mrs. Eddy's home within twenty-four 
hours. In this emergency Mrs. Eddy summoned 
Mr. Alfred Farlow, head of the Christian Science 
Publication Committee. To meet the gathering 
newspaper men he sent to Concord an able repre- 
sentative, Mr. H. Cornell Wilson, of New York. 
Mr. Wilson conferred with Mr. Frye and his assist- 
ant, Mr. Lewis C. Strang, a former dramatic critic 
of Boston. From men of affairs in Concord who 
were not Christian Scientists Mr. Strang and Mr. 



358 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Wilson secured affidavits as to Mrs. Eddy's social 
and business character. The affidavits were from 
the treasurer of the Loan and Trust Savings Bank 
of Concord, Fred N. Ladd ; the president of the Na- 
tional State Capital Bank, J. E. Fernald; a lawyer 
who stands at the head of the New Hampshire bar, 
General Frank S. Streeter; the mayor of Concord, 
Charles R. Corning; and the editors of the two 
most prominent New Hampshire papers, M. Meehan 
of the Concord Patriot and George H. Moses of 
the Monitor and Statesman. 

The affidavits covered the points that Mrs. Eddy 
had personal and business relations with her bankers, 
that she was the person who rode out in her carriage 
daily, and that she was not an invalid, or in any way 
mentally impaired, as she had received within the 
week for a call of a half-hour's duration Mayor 
Corning and General Streeter. Mr. Moses declared 
that he possessed in Mrs. Eddy's handwriting a 
budget of more than a hundred letters written to 
him during the past few years (the last one bearing a 
recent date) , letters concerning printing which he had 
done for her. Affidavits were also furnished from 
members of the Pleasant View household; the two 
secretaries, Calvin A. Frye and Lewis C. Strang; 
the two companions, Mrs. Laura Sargent and 
Mrs. Pamelia Leonard, refuting the charge that 
Mrs. Eddy had any organic disease. 

The assembled press representatives accepted 
with thanks the data supplied them, but united in 
the request for a personal interview with Mrs. Eddy. 
Their request was not only united but individual, and 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 359 

the most persistent of the reporters besieged the 
front door of Pleasant View, while photographers 
and artists stood at the gateway and haunted the 
driveway. Recognizing the situation as imperative, 
Mrs. Eddy decided to receive them all on Tuesday, 
October 30. They were bidden to come at one 
o'clock, when she would give them an audience just 
before taking her drive. 

Accordingly, about fifteen newspaper men and 
women drove to Pleasant View and assembled in 
her drawing-room. There were also present her 
banker, her lawyer, the mayor, and a few men promi- 
nent in the Mother Church. The dainty rose 
drawing-room was quite filled with an ofiicial-looking 
assemblage, and many of the faces were intense with 
expectation of what they were about to behold. 
When Mrs. Eddy came down her own stairway and 
stood for a moment in the entrance, confronting the 
cynical and skeptical world, a world which refused to 
believe in disinterested virtue, she caught for a 
moment at the portiere and an expression of pained 
comprehension slowly swept her face, a crimson 
stain burned her cheeks, and her eyes flashed a look 
of reproach over the assemblage. 

Professor H. S. Hering, first reader of the Concord 
church, courteously and briefly stated the purpose 
of the gathering. Mrs. Eddy bowed. To the first 
question, *'Are you in perfect bodily health.^" she 
replied clearly and firmly, "I am." When the second 
question was put, *'Have you any physician beside 
God ? " Mrs. Eddy loosed her grasp upon the portiere, 
took a step forward, and stretching out both hands in 



360 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

a sweeping, open gesture, declared solemnly and with 
magnificent energy, her voice thrilling all who heard 
her, ** Indeed, I have not ! His everlasting arms are 
around me and support me, and that is enough." 

Here Mrs. Eddy terminated the interview with 
another bow to the assemblage and a hand lifted 
against further questioning. She withdrew and 
Mr. Frye and Mrs. Sargent escorted her to her 
carriage which was waiting under the porte-cochere. 
As she left the house the newspaper men crowded 
the windows to watch her drive away. Wlien her 
carriage disappeared, they asked to be shown the 
house, and were escorted over it. They entered 
the quiet study on the second floor, looked at the 
pictures on the walls, the books in the cases, stood 
where she so often did to survey the broad valley. 
They went through the simple little bedroom ad- 
joining and surveyed the plain austerity of its 
furnishing with frank curiosity. The women re- 
porters asked to see her wardrobe, and were shown 
the orderly clothes-room where her garments hung. 
In the dining-room they saw where she sat at table, 
the chocolate service she used, and inquired who 
sat on her right and left. They saw the library, her 
special chair, the table where books of reference 
were consulted. They examined the rugs and hang- 
ings of the drawing-room, the souvenirs, certificates 
of honor, the paintings. They did not ask to see 
her account books, or the exact spot in which she 
knelt at prayer. 

On the whole the investigation of the private life 
and character of the venerable Leader was satis- 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 361 

factory to the newspapers. The journal which had 
printed the disagreeable article was discredited. It 
had failed to substantiate the story that Mrs. Eddy 
was in feeble health, and could produce no one to 
bear it out in the statement that she was mentally 
incapable. Her home life was shown to be simple 
and her relations with the citizens of Concord open 
and honorable. 

But one important circumstance of Mrs. Eddy's 
life remained uncanvassed, her relation wdth her son, 
George W. Glover. Herein the New York news- 
paper which had aroused the recent inquiry 
thought it saw an opportunity to again challenge 
public attention and prove that the life upon which 
public scrutiny had been bent was not blameless. 
On Thanksgiving Day of 1906 a representative of 
the paper called on Mr. Glover in his home in Lead 
City, South Dakota^ carrying a letter from Senator 
William E. Chandler of New Hampshire which 
stated that he had consented to act as legal counsel 
concerning certain questions which had arisen in 
connection mth Mrs. Eddy's life. In its subsequent 
story of the interview \\dth George Glover, the 
newspaper stated frankly that it found the son a 
loyal champion of his mother, and that it was neces- 
sary to impress upon him his legal opportunity and 
to make him believe that his aid was necessary to 
extricate his mother from being ''detained in the 
custody of strangers against her will." 

The clever New York newspaper man sat down 
in George Glover's home, a home with which Mrs. 
Eddy had presented her son, and drew from the 



362 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

guileless Westerner the story of his life and his 
relations with his mother. It was a story which 
must have surprised the reporter, for in spite of 
skilful manipulation of the facts, the truth was 
made apparent and stood forth in unblemished 
purity a witness to the mother's faithful considera- 
tion for her only child. He related the circumstances 
of his several visits to his mother while she was 
living at Pleasant View, how his mother had given 
him $5,000 at one time to further his mining in- 
terests, how she had built for him the finest house 
in Lead City at an expense of $20,000 and had sent 
him $1,100 additional to make alterations which he 
desired after occupying it, how she had interested 
herself in the education of his children and had sent 
money to him for that purpose. 

To be sure, George Glover's story was filled with 
personal grievances. He did not like it that he could 
not always have direct access to his mother when 
visiting her at Pleasant View. He would have liked 
to realize for days the pleasure he experienced for 
a few hours in seeing her embrace and caress his 
children and make merry with the youngest in a 
relaxed mood. He recounted how she had once 
permitted him in a sportive spirit to ring her electric 
bells and summon her secretary. It was the presence 
of a secretary which seemed particularly to have 
aggrieved the son. A secretary was to him an un- 
necessary personage, a man of affairs who scanned 
his demands upon his mother's love with an un- 
emotional business eye and offered advice where 
Glover thought he would have benefited had advice 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 363 

not been given. As a matter of fact Calvin Frye 
never acted as adviser but as executor of Mrs. 
Eddy's wishes. 

Playing upon this prejudice toward the secretary, 
the newspaper representative appears to have found 
it easy to induce Glover to exaggerate in his own 
mind the sense of his grievances and to catch the 
fear that he would eventually be wrongfully de- 
prived of his inheritance by those men of affairs with 
whom his mother had so long associated. Glover 
was induced to believe that he was in a pitiable 
condition of neglect and that powerful friends had 
been raised up by the newspaper to aid him. Thus 
he beheld his "legal opportunity" to interfere in the 
management of his mother's affairs. 

As soon as George Glover consented to act in a 
suit at law nominally for his mother's interests, but 
in reality against her every wish and purpose, her 
only other heirs were sought out by this same agency 
and persuaded to join the issue. These heirs were 
her adopted son, Ebenezer Foster-Eddy, and George 
W. Baker, her nephew. The suit was brought by 
the sons and nephew, together with Glover's oldest 
child, Mary Baker Glover. It was called the peti- 
tion of next friends, or exactly, '*The petition of 
Mary Baker Glover Eddy who sues by her next 
friends George W. Glover, Mary Baker Glover, and 
George W. Baker against Calvin A. Frye, Alfred 
Farlow, Irving C. Tomlinson, Ira O. Knapp, 
William B. Johnson, Stephen A. Chase, Joseph 
Armstrong, Edward A. Kimball, Hermann S. Her- 
ing, and Lewis C. Strang." 



364 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

The particulars of the complaint are too largely 
a matter of legal technics to be recounted save in 
summary. It is sufficient to say that it was set forth 
in the bill that Mrs. Eddy was forcibly detained and 
constrained to do the will of strangers, that her 
large estate was manipulated improperly by her 
secretaries, and that she was in a feeble mental state 
which prevented her comprehending what dis- 
position was being made of her affairs. The plain- 
tiffs prayed that the defendants be required to give 
account of all their business transactions, and if 
they had wrongfully disposed of any property that 
they be made to restore it; that they be restrained 
from any further business dealings in Mrs. Eddy's 
name, pending the suit, and that a receiver be ap- 
pointed to take possession of all Mrs. Eddy's 
property. 

So this son, who was alienated from his mother in 
childhood because his rugged health and boisterous 
spirits were declared by relatives to be unendurable 
in a home where she was an invalid, was now in her 
advanced years stirred up against her by what 
motive it is difficult indeed to determine, but by the 
method of arousing a false fear for her welfare 
through his unfamiliarity with the enormous social 
interests involved. But Mrs. Eddy was not supine 
under the peculiar and extraordinary attack. She 
came forward to meet the issue with the deliberation 
of a superbly clarified intellect and her procedure 
was so wise in every detail as to win the applause 
of the most judicial as well as the most worldly of 
her critics. 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT S65 

Her first act was to employ an expert accountant 
to go over her books and ascertain if any charge of 
mismanagement or malfeasance could be brought 
against her trusted secretary, Calvin A. Frye. 
When her books which had been audited yearly 
were found to be substantially correct, save for a 
slight error in bookkeeping which defrauded not 
her, but the secretary himself, she created a trustee- 
ship, transferring all her property to three men for 
their management and disposition, subject to clearly 
defined conditions. These three men were her 
cousin, the Honorable Henry M. Baker, her banker, 
Josiah E. Fernald, and the editor of the Christian 
Science Journal and Sentinel (also member of the 
board of directors of the Mother Church) , Archibald 
McLellan. But one of these men was a Christian 
Scientist; the others were prominent business men 
of Concord, her cousin having represented his dis- 
trict in Congress. 

With a view to taking this step she had caused to 
be created a trust deed for the benefit of her son, 
George W. Glover, and his family, by which she 
conveyed securities valued at $125,000 to the guardi- 
anship of her lawyer. General Frank S. Streeter, 
Archibald McLellan, and Irving C. Tomlinson. 
The provisos of the trust guaranteed a liberal annual 
income to her son during his lifetime and to his wife 
during hers, a smaller annual income to each of 
her grandchildren, and the expenditure of money 
for the education of those who had not completed 
their schooling, and its maintenance in force until 
her youngest grandchild should reach his majority. 



366 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

On the death of her son and his wife, and the arrival 
of the grandchildren at years of majority, the trust 
was to be paid over in equal shares to her grand- 
children. This trust bore the proviso, however, 
that the beneficiaries should not directly or in- 
directly contest her last will or other disposition of 
property. 

This arrangement did not satisfy George Glover, 
whose suspicion was now thoroughly aroused by 
misrepresentations of his mother's property. He 
was led to believe that her fortune was enormous 
and that he was faring but ill in its benefits. The 
petition was filed March 1, 1907, and on April 2 
the trustees of Mrs. Eddy's property begged leave 
to intervene and be made substitutes in place of the 
*'next friends.'^ Thereupon the complainants 
amended their petition and considerable legal delay 
ensued. On June 5, Judge Robert N. Chamberlin 
of New Hampshire denied the motion of the trustees 
to intervene, but on June 27 he constituted the Hon- 
orable Edgar Aldrich a master of the court to hear 
all pertinent and competent evidence and determine 
whether Mary Baker G. Eddy on the first day of 
March, 1907, was capable of intelligently managing, 
controlling, and conducting her financial affairs. 
Co-masters were subsequently appointed, these 
being Dr. George F. Jelly of Boston, an alienist, 
and the Honorable Hosea W. Parker of Claremont, 
New Hampshire, an eminent lawyer. 

Accordingly, when all the details of qualifying for 
masters were completed. Judge Aldrich began the 
hearing in Concord. The hearing opened on Mon- 



THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 367 

day, August 13, 1907. It was continued for six days, 
with a recess for Saturday and Sunday, and on the 
sixth day the complainants withdrew their suit by 
motion of their counsel, without asking from the 
masters any finding upon the questions submitted 
to them by Judge Chamberlin. The withdrawal 
of the suit came suddenly and was in the nature of a 
collapse. It followed shortly upon the heels of a 
visit paid to Mrs. Eddy at Pleasant View by the 
masters' court and counsel for both defendants and 
plaintiffs which was a courtesy extended to her, 
because of her years, by Judge Aldrich. Senator 
Chandler, the lawyer for George W. Glover, had 
endeavored to have the court command Mrs. Eddy's 
presence in the court room, but Judge Aldrich de- 
cided that the court could convene as well in the 
library of Pleasant View to protect Mrs. Eddy from 
the unnecessary strain of appearing in a court room 
among the throngs of the curious and at such a 
season as mid-August. During the visit to her home 
she exhibited such mental alertness and ability in 
discussing financial, civic, and social topics, that it 
was a foregone conclusion that the masters' findings 
would adjudge her eminently capable of administer- 
ing her own affairs. Apprehending this clearly from 
long legal experience, the astute lawyer for the com- 
plainants decided upon withdrawal. 

Therefore, after almost a year of unjust prosecu- 
tion, Mrs. Eddy was permitted to regain the privacy 
which she desired and the conduct of matters rela- 
tive to the welfare of the church in which her life- 
work had centered. Her first public utterance came 



368 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

through her trustees when she made public her in- 
tention of creating a fund for the education of indi- 
gent students along lines of Christian Science 
inquiry. The details of her project had not been 
worked out, but the public was satisfied that the 
fortune derived from .the sale of her various books 
was designed for the betterment of humanity. 

On Sunday, January 26, 1908, Mrs. Eddy changed 
her residence from Pleasant View, Concord, to 
Chestnut Hill, in the suburbs of Boston. Her new 
home was estabUshed in a cheerful gray stone 
mansion, situated in twelve acres of well-wooded 
ground, commanding a view of the Blue Hills. 
The commodious house, containing twenty-five 
rooms was adapted for the use of a larger house- 
hold than was Pleasant View. Mrs. Eddy's new 
educational projects required the additional at- 
tention of extra clerks and secretaries, and she 
also desired to be in closer touch with the head- 
quarters of the church in furthering her philan- 
thropic purposes. 

Her removal from Concord was made by special 
train and she was accompanied by a small party of 
Christian Scientists. Her drive to the station from 
Pleasant View was somewhat of a farewell to her 
birthplace and was on the whole a rather sad one; 
but the journey aroused her spirits to the work 
before her, and she entered her new home blithely 
and cheerfully. Her energy was unusual and within 
a few hours she had established the routine of her 
life in her new home. The arrangement of its rooms 
is not unlike that of Pleasant View, except for a 



ffvJ^y n:::v 



^SBBSK 









THE LEADER IN RETIREMENT 369 

greater spaciousness and more agreeable accommo- 
dations for her assistants and visiting friends. 

When it became known in Concord that Mrs. 
Eddy had decided to make her home in Massa- 
chusetts, the city council met and passed resolutions 
of regret at her departure and of appreciation for 
the kindly relations that had existed for nineteen 
years between her and Concord people and also of 
her beneficence to the city of Concord. The mayor 
and the clerk were authorized to attest the testi- 
monial of esteem in behalf of the city. This was 
done and the resolutions forwarded to Mrs. Eddy. 
She replied to their cordial recognition in the 
following words: 

To the Honorable Mayor and City Council, Concord, N. H. 

Gentlemen, — I have not only the pleasure but 
the honor of replying to the City Council of Con- 
cord, in joint convention assembled, and to Alder- 
man Cressy, for the kindly resolutions passed by 
your honorable body, and for which I thank you 
deeply. Lest I should acknowledge more than I 
deserve of praise, I leave their courteous opinions 
to their good judgment. 

My early days hold rich recollections of asso- 
ciations with your churches and institutions, and 
memory has a distinct model in granite of the good 
folk in Concord, which like the granite of their 
State, steadfast and enduring, has hinted this quaUty 
to other states and nations all over the world. 

My home influence, early education and church 
experience, have unquestionably ripened into the 
fruits of my present religious experience, and for 
this I prize them. May I honor this origin and 

24 



370 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

deserve the continued friendship and esteem of the 
people in my native State. 

Sincerely yours, 

Mary Baker G. Eddy. 

By this letter she affirmed her continued inter- 
est in all who had been associated with her in 
early life and throughout her later years of use- 
fulness and noble living; and by the projects to 
which she now gave her attention, declared her pur- 
pose of rising above the criticism of an unjust 
world into the pure atmosphere of brotherly love, 
fulfilling the commandments of her only acknowl- 
edged Master, to love God with all her heart and 
her neighbor as herself. 



CHAPTER XXII 

LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 

RETURNING to Boston in her eighty-seventh 
year to take up her residence at Chestnut 
Hill, Mrs. Eddy caused the world to wonder what 
she could have in mind to accomplish by this 
change of base for her household. The average 
commenter regarded the move as hazardous for 
one of her advanced years and believed that she 
could find no contentment in a new home after 
her long residence in Concord. But such com- 
menter s were basing their judgment on the facts 
of an ordinary life. An ordinary life has ceased 
to be concerned with the affairs of this world after 
entering the eighties and is willing to drift quietly 
with the tide. But Mrs. Eddy had purposes as 
yet unrevealed to the world, among which was 
one great purpose, a purpose cherished for twenty- 
five years, namely, the establishment of a daily 
newspaper. 

The germ of this enterprise lay in the seed that 
was planted in 1883 in the first issue of the eight- 
page paper, at first sent out only once every two 
months, the paper called The Journal of Christian 
Science, for twenty years whose early fortunes have 
been traced in the chapter dealing with foundation 
work in Boston. During this time the Christian 



372 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Science Sentinel had been established as a weekly 
publication of Christian Science news, dealing with 
affairs of the church, with the lecturers, and print- 
ing letters and testimonies of healing, the Journal, 
which had become a monthly, retaining the special 
province of publishing articles and essays on meta- 
physical subjects from the pens of the students. 
There was also established Der Herold der Christian 
Science, a monthly in the German language. 

All these publications were then housed at 250 
Huntington avenue. Ground was broken for the 
erection of the Christian Science Publishing House 
in the summer of 1907 and the work was actively 
pushed, for Mrs. Eddy's attention was now largely 
concentrated upon the publications of the church, 
and her cherished purpose was yet to be unfolded to 
her followers. This came in the first few months of 
her residence in Boston. The new publishing house 
had gone up speedily at the corner of St. Paul and 
Falmouth streets, a handsome, three-storied struc- 
ture of Bedford stone. The Publishing Society 
occupied its new quarters in August, 1908. During 
July Mrs. Eddy communicated to the Board of 
Directors her wish that in the near future a daily 
newspaper be started, and on August 8 she sent the 
following letter to the Board of Trustees: 

August 8, 1908 
Christian Science Board of Trustees, 
Boston, Mass. 

Beloved Students, — It is my request that you 
start a daily newspaper at once, and call it the 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 373 

Christian Science Monitor. Let there be no delay. 
The Cause demands that it be issued now. 

You may consult with the Board of Directors, I 
have notified them of my intention. 

Lovingly yours, 

Mary B. G. Eddy. 

On September 19 a request was sent out through 
the Sentinel to the field for subscriptions to a fund 
to enlarge the Publishing House. No explanation 
was offered at this time of the Leader's purpose, 
but a response indicative of the confidence and 
support of the church for Mrs. Eddy's projects was 
instant, — money began to come in immediately. 
There was need of it, for much work had to be 
done. The land adjoining the existing structure 
was occupied by a block of flats in which were 
numerous tenants. These tenements had to be 
cleared and razed before construction could be 
begun. All this was accomplished rapidly and 
without friction or lawsuit. No men of affairs 
ever had a more active, earnest director behind 
them than the woman of eighty-seven in her quiet 
retreat in the Newton Hills, just outside the limits 
of Boston. 

As the structure went up the city wondered, 
editors of newspapers were watching, and reporters 
continually strove to elicit information as to what 
the Christian Science church was going to do with 
such a commodious building. While the building 
operations were still going on the great modern 
presses were placed in position, wrapped in tarpaulin 
for protection. Continual speculation went on in 



374 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the other newspaper offices of the city, and many 
conjectures were printed. But the inquirers were 
obhged to possess themselves in patience until 
October 17, 1908, when there was published in the 
Sentinel an editorial leader entitled '* The Christian 
Science Monitor,'' In this article Mr. McLellan 
said: 

We are pleased to announce that with the ap- 
proval of our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, The Christian 
Science Publishing Society will shortly issue a 
daily newspaper to be known as The Christian 
Science Monitor, In making this announcement we 
can say for the Trustees of the Society that they 
confidently hope and expect to make the Monitor 
a worthy addition to the list of publications issued 
by the Society. It is their intention to publish a 
strictly up-to-date newspaper, in which all the 
news of the day which should be printed will find 
a place, and whose service will not be restricted to 
any one locality or section, but will cover the daily 
activities of the entire world. 

As to the motive which has led to the establish- 
ment of a daily paper of this character, there is 
nothing we could say that would be so forceful or 
so timely as the announcement made by Mrs. 
Eddy when she established the Christian Science 
Journal. We quote as follows from her article, 
"A Timely Issue," as it appears in "Miscellaneous 
Writings:" 

"Looking over the newspapers of the day one 
naturally reflects that it is dangerous to live, so 
loaded with disease seems the very air. These 
descriptions carry fear to many minds, to be de- 
picted in some future time upon the body. A peri- 
odical of our own will counteract to some extent 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 375 

this public nuisance; for through our paper, at 
the price at which we shall issue it, we shall be 
able to reach many homes with healing, purifying 
thought." 

It will be the mission of the Monitor to publish 
the real news of the world in a clean, wholesome 
manner, devoid of the sensational methods em- 
ployed by so many newspapers. There will be no 
exploitation or illustration of vice and crime, but 
the aim of the editors will be to issue a paper which 
will be welcomed in every home where purity and 
refinement are cherished ideals. 

A notice was published in the Sentinel asking for 
Christian Scientists who were professional journal- 
ists to volunteer their services for the new pubH- 
cation. A very large number of responses came, 
more than could be accepted. But a wise and 
sufficient selection of applicants was made. The 
first issue of the Monitor appeared November 
25, 1908, the day before Thanksgiving. In that 
issue appeared an editorial leader written by Mrs. 
Eddy entitled, ''Something in a Name." In it she 
said: 

I have given the name to all the Christian Science 
periodicals. The first was The Christian Science 
Journal, designed to put on record the divine 
Science of Truth; the second I entitled Sentinel, 
intended to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love; 
the third, Der Herold der Christian Science, to pro- 
claim the universal activity and availability of 
Truth; the next I named Monitor, to spread un- 
divided the Science that operates unspent. The 
object of the Monitor, is to injure no man, but to 
bless all mankind. 



376 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

Thus Mrs. Eddy assumed full responsibility for 
the new publication, re-affirming the motto of her 
life as the motto of the new paper. If any doubt 
lay in the mind of the w^orld as to who was the 
actual founder of the new paper it should have 
been dispelled by the editorial in the issue of the 
Sentinel, October 24, 1908, in which the editor 
thanked the Boston Herald for the respects paid to 
the forthcoming Monitor, The Herald had printed 
this paragraph: 

Good luck to the coming Christian Science news- 
paper. Starting a daily paper is an enterprise that 
usually tests the courage and resources of the 
bravest and most resourceful souls. The grave- 
yards are full of their remains. 

"We hope," said the editor of the Sentinel, ''we 
shall not be considered boastful when we say that 
the progress of the Christian Science movement 
from its very beginning has been not one only, but 
a series of steps such as ' usually test the courage and 
resources of the bravest and most resourceful souls;' 
and that as an incentive to high endeavor we could 
have nothing better than the example of our Leader, 
Mrs. Eddy, under whose guidance these steps have 
been taken successfully." 

And they were taken successfully. The new 
paper was cordially received by the press in all 
parts of the country, its appearance was veritably 
a demonstration of brotherhood, and this was the 
title of an editorial which appeared in the second 
number, closing with these words: 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 377 

To count the various items of good-will that 
went to build up the Monitor would be impossible. 
The architect was devoted, and his representa- 
tive, the superintendent of the work, was indefati- 
gable; the contractors were industrious in trying to 
meet the time limit. The builders of the press 
gave night and day labors. Those who had to pro- 
vide materials brought in supplies, disregarding 
their own convenience. There was much more 
than buying and selling involved. There was the 
urgency of kindness in much of the work done. 
There was fine fidelity to promises given. There 
was honesty that rose above the claim of policy. 
Some might have seen confusion, but to the seeing 
eye, taking form among the clouds, was the vision 
of man serving man in a brotherhood of service. 
And through this demonstration of brotherhood 
the Leader of the Christian Science movement 
finds her labors for the world now assisted by The 
Christian Science Monitor, 

''No wonder," commented Frederick Dixon of 
London in the Outlook, a British publication, after 
the passing of Mrs. Eddy, "no wonder Mrs. Eddy 
was an ever-inspiring leader to work for, and no 
wonder there grew up around her a body of devoted 
assistants. No matter how hard they might work, 
she worked harder still; and for months and years, 
while they were receiving her constant and incisive 
instructions, they read with mingled amusement 
and amazement the stories of her mental incapacity 
and the failure of the movement, which then, very 
much as now, constituted in the Press the news of 
Christian Science." 

The body of devoted assistants had presented in 



S78 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the march of events differing types of men with 
differing talents and quahfications for work. These 
men were under the survey of her active mind, 
they were constantly being tried and tested in 
various services, and time was making it necessary 
for her to place her hand on the shoulder of some 
of these men and summon them to the post of the 
most urgent fidelity the church could require. 
Changes in the personnel of the Board of Directors 
were made necessary by the death of two members 
and the resignation of a third whose long and faith- 
ful service had given him the rightful privilege of 
retiring. 

Joseph Armstrong, publisher of Mrs. Eddy's 
works, business manager of The Christian Science 
Publishing Society, and for nine years a director of 
The Mother Church in Boston, passed from life in 
this world at his home 387 Commonwealth avenue, 
Boston, on Monday evening, December 9, 1907. He 
had been a very efficient man, both as director of the 
church and as manager of the Publishing Society. 
His departure from this earth did not take place 
until he had performed his duty in accounting for 
his stewardship at the Concord hearing of the suit 
brought against the estate by George W. Glover. 
Mrs. Eddy wrote the following tribute to his 
memory the day after his departure: 



Hear, O Israel: The late lamented Christian 
Scientist brother and the publisher of my books, 
Joseph Armstrong, C. S. D., is not dead, neither 
does he sleep nor rest from his labors in divine 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 379 

Science; and his works do follow him. Evil has no 
power to harm, to hinder, or to destroy the real 
spiritual man. He is wiser to-day, healthier and 
happier, than yesterday. The mortal dream of 
life, substance or mind in matter, has been lessened, 
and the reward of good and punishment of evil and 
the waking out of this Adam dream of evil will 
end in harmony, — evil powerless, and God, good, 
omnipotent, and infinite. 

In January, 1908, Mrs. Eddy appointed Allison 
V. Stewart as her publisher. He had been a 
member of the Board of Trustees since September, 
1906. Mrs. Eddy also nominated Mr. Stewart for 
the vacancy on the Board of Directors of The 
Mother Church and he was elected a member. 
With Mrs. Eddy's consent David B. Ogden was 
elected business manager of The Christian Science 
Pubhshing Society. 

On May 31, 1909, Wilham B. Johnson, for nine- 
teen years Clerk of the Mother Church and member 
of the Board of Directors, and a loyal student for 
twenty-five years, lovingly desired of Mrs. Eddy 
the privilege of resigning from the post which had 
become one of the most exacting offices of the 
church. He expressed the wish to devote his time 
to the practise of Christian Science healing. His 
request was granted and a tribute to his long years 
of service appeared in the editorial columns of the 
Sentinel as a leader, entitled, "Well Done." The 
vacancy caused by Mr. Johnson's retirement was 
filled by the election of John V. Dittemore, who 
took his seat as a member of the board and as 
Clerk of the Mother Church at the annual meeting. 



380 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

May 31, 1909. In answer to an invitation extended 
to Mrs. Eddy by the Board of Directors to attend 
the annual meeting, Mrs. Eddy sent the following 
letter : 

The Christian Science Board of Directors, Beloved Students : 

I thank you for your kind invitation to be present 
at the annual meeting of the Mother Church on 
June 7, 1909. I will attend the meeting, but not 
in propria persona. Watch and pray that God 
directs your meetings and your lives, and your 
Leader will then be sure that they are blessed in 
their results. Lovingly yours, 

Mary Baker Eddy. 

The Sentinel of November 19, 1910, in an edi- 
torial leader commemorated the services of Ira O. 
Knapp, C. S. D., who passed from earth November 
11, 1910, at his home in Batavia street, Boston. 

Adam H. Dickey, who for nearly three years had 
been Mrs. Eddy's secretary, was unanimously 
elected a member of The Christian Science Board 
of Directors to fill this vacancy in accord with the 
following letter, received November 21, 1910, which 
it is interesting to note was the last official commu- 
nication of Mrs. Eddy to any of the officers of her 
Church. It read: 

Board of Directors : 

Beloved Students, — Please appoint Mr. Adam 
H. Dickey member of the Board of Directors. 

Lovingly yours, 

Mary B. Eddy. 

Thus during Mrs. Eddy's residence at Chestnut 
Hill was the personnel of the Board of Directors 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 381 

changed by three members. Her attention had 
been very much centered upon the directorate and 
its dehberations. She had heartened it by special 
messages sent to its meetings, she had given it 
very important work to do in the investigation of 
the practises of certain of the branch churches, 
and she had sustained it by messages to the field. 
In one particular instance, she had written the 
following letter: 

Brookune, Mass., Nov. 13, 1909. 

To the Board of Trustees, First Church of Christ, Scientist, 
New York City: 

Beloved Brethren, — In consideration of the 
present momentous question at issue in First Church 
of Christ, Scientist, New York City, I am con- 
strained to say, if I can settle this church difiiculty 
amicably by a few words, as many students think 
I can, I herewith cheerfully subscribe these words 
of love: 

My beloved brethren in First Church of Christ, 
Scientist, New York City, I advise you with all 
my soul to support the Directors of the Mother 
Church, and in this way God will bless and prosper 
you. This I know, for He has proved it to me for 
forty years in succession. 

Lovingly yours, 

Mary Baker Eddy. 



To support the directors of the Mother Church 
meant that the members of the Mother Church 
and the members of branch churches should be 
loyal to the tenets of the Mother Church as set 
forth in the Church Manual; for it is the work of 



382 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the Board of Directors to administer the disciphne 
of this manual. When Mrs. Eddy wrote that she 
had for forty years supported the directors of the 
church, she did not write an absurdity but the 
veritable truth. She had supported the tenets 
and been governed by the tenets since 1879, the 
charter for the church having been obtained in 
June of that year. It is true that Mrs. Eddy 
drafted the tenets of the church herself, and from 
time to time revised and amended them, as the 
experience of the church "walking through deep 
waters" many times revealed a necessity for regu- 
lation. But her authorship of the Manual was as 
inspired as her authorship of ''Science and Health," 
she studied both writings and submitted her life 
to the guidance of the Manual as well as the text 
book.^ 

An important part of the labors performed by 
Mrs. Eddy after removing to Chestnut Hill was a 
revision of the Manual. In the Sentinel for June 
20, 1908, this letter appeared: 

My BELOVED Brethren, — When I asked you 
to dispense with the Executive Members meeting 

1 On the twenty-third day of September, 1892, at the request of Rev. 
Mary Baker Eddy, twelve of her students and church members met and re- 
organized, under her jurisdiction. The Christian Science Church and named 
it. The First Church of Christ, Scientist. At this meeting twenty others of 
Mrs. Eddy's students and members of her former church were elected members 
of this church, — those with others that have since been elected were known 
as "First Members." The Church Tenets, Rules and By-Laws, as prepared 
by Mrs. Eddy, were adopted. A by-law adopted March 17, 1903, changed 
the title of "First Members" to "Executive Members." (On July 8, 1908, 
the by-laws pertaining to "Executive Members" were repealed.) 

Historical Sketch, Church Manual. 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 38S 

the purpose of my request was sacred. It was to 
turn your sense of worship from the material to 
the spiritual, the personal to the impersonal, the 
denominational to the doctrinal, yea, from the 
human to the divine. 

Already you have advanced from the audible to 
the inaudible prayer; from the material to the 
spiritual communion, from dogma to deity; and 
you have been greatly recompensed. Rejoice and 
be exceedingly glad, for so doth the divine Love 
redeem your body from disease; your being from 
sensuality; your soul from sense; your life from 
death. Of this abounding and abiding spiritual 
understanding the prophet Isaiah said, '*And I 
will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; 
I will lead them in paths that they have not known : 
I will make darkness light before them, and crooked 
things straight. These things will I do unto them 
and not forsake them." 
(Signed) Mary Baker Eddy. 

On July 8, 1908, the body of Executive Members 
was dissolved. On May 22, 1909, notice of an 
amended by-law was published entitled, "No In- 
terference," Section 10, Article XXIII. This by- 
law provided for the complete democratization of 
the organization and shed light on the abolishment 
of Executive Members. It reads: 

A member of the Mother Church may be a mem- 
ber of one branch Church of Christ, Scientist, or 
of one Christian Science society holding public 
services, but he shall not be a member of both a 
branch church and a society; neither shall he exer- 
cise supervision or control over any other church. 
In Christian Science each branch church shall be 



384 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

distinctly democratic in its government, and no 
individual, and no other church shall interfere with 
its affairs. 

On June 21, 1908, the Committee on Pubhca- 
tion issued this notice from Mrs. Eddy : 

The house of The Mother Church seats only five 
thousand people, and its membership includes 
forty-eight thousand communicants, hence the 
following : 

The branch churches continue their Communion 
seasons, but there shall be no more Communion 
season in The Mother Church that has blossomed 
into spiritual beauty. Communion universal and 
divine. "For who hath known the mind of the 
Lord, that he may instruct Him? But we have 
the mind of Christ." (I Cor. 2: 16.) 

On the same date the following letter was written 
which appeared in the Sentinel for June £7, 1908: 

Beloved Christian Scientists, — Take cour- 
age. God is leading you onward and upward. 
Relinquishing a material form of Communion ad- 
vances it spiritually. The material form is a 
"Suffer it to be so now" and is abandoned so soon 
as God's Wayshower, Christ, points the advanced 
step. This instructs us how to be abased and how 
to abound. Dropping the Communion of the 
Mother Church does not prevent its distant mem- 
bers from occasionally attending this church. 

(Signed) Mary Baker Eddy. 

The above provision was embodied in the Man- 
ual under Article XVIII. It has been shown in a 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 385 

previous chapter how the founder of Christian 
Science solved the difficult problem of organization, 
and in these important amendments of the Manual 
is shown her wise provision for the harmonious gov- 
ernment of the church, and the removal of a motive 
for religious pilgrimages to the Mother Church by 
advancing its form of Communion to the spiritual 
understanding of its gracious compact with the 
branch churches of the entire world. 

It had been said to the author of this book by- 
one of Mrs. Eddy's very oldest loyal students, that 
the Leader would stand by her post until her work 
was done, that the world's criticisms, the law- 
suits of enemies, the burden of years, would not 
affect her to drive her from the post of duty until 
her plans and purposes for the church in the world 
were accomplished. On September 28, 1910, Mrs. 
Eddy sent a notice to the Publishing House for in- 
sertion in three issues of the Sentinel: 

I hereby announce to the Christian Science field 
that all inquiries or information relating to Chris- 
tian Science practise, to publication committee 
work, reading-room work, or to Mother Church 
membership should be sent to the Christian Science 
Board of Directors of the Mother Church; and 
I have requested my secretaries not to make in- 
quiries on these subjects, nor to reply to any received, 
but to leave these duties to the Clerk of the Mother 
Church, to whom they belong. 

Mary Baker Eddy. 

During the year 1909 Mrs. Eddy's labors for 
the Monitor and her attention to a heavy cor- 

S5 



386 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

respondence which she had not as yet laid down 
combined to fill her days with as much activity as 
a man in his prime would care to assume. It was 
therefore of especial significance that to her should 
have come at this time news of the dedication of 
a splendid church edifice in the largest city of the 
world, First Church of Christ, Scientist, London, 
England. 

Two letters came to Mrs. Eddy from the board 
of directors of this church, one in May explain- 
ing the steps which had been taken to make pos- 
sible the dedication, and another in June to 
say the dedication was solemnized June 13. In 
the letter of particulars these interesting facts 
were given: 

The whole of our liabilities, amounting to up- 
ward of eighty thousand pounds (approximately 
four hundred thousand dollars), have been met, 
and the church stands on its own freehold site 
in one of the most convenient positions in Lon- 
don. Our aim throughout has been to keep to 
the keynote of simplicity and dignity, to accom- 
modate as many as possible within the limits of 
our space, and to arrange that all should be able 
to see and hear to the best advantage. All 
the Christian Science churches in London, and 
other Christian Science churches in the United 
Kingdom, have generously contributed to our 
building fund. The meeting on April 26 had 
been called for the purpose of taking up a 
collection to enable us to pay off the sum still 
remaining as a liability on the land, but at the 
commencement of the meeting the treasurer was 
able to announce that the sum was already in hand, 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 387 

and that he had that day paid off the last install- 
ment. The members then decided that a practical 
expression of our thankfulness to God could take 
no better form than in a gift to the Publishing 
House, so a collection amounting to one thousand 
four hundred and seventeen pounds (approxi- 
mately seven thousand dollars) was taken at the 
meeting, and it was also resolved that the collection 
at the dedication should be devoted to the same 
purpose. 

Mrs. Eddy sent to this church a letter of sym- 
pathetic rejoicing as she was also enabled to do in 
November of the same year to First Church of 
Christ, Scientist, Edinburgh, who had announced 
to her that they were ready to begin their structure 
in the land of her forefathers. 

In the month of November, 1909, the Leader's 
heart was gladdened by the reassurance of First 
Church of Christ, Scientist, New York City, of its 
support of the Board of Directors of The Mother 
Church, Boston. This took place after a patient 
and thorough examination into methods and prac- 
tises of certain members of that church which had 
been complained of for a period of years. The 
directorate of The Mother Church, after patient 
remonstrance with the chief offenders of the New 
York congregation, acted for The Mother Church 
by removing the names of the persistent offenders 
from the roster of its membership. It did not 
interfere, however, with the local government of 
First Church, New York City, but left that church 
to the democratic dealing with its own affairs 



388 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

which has ever been the pohcy of the Christian 
Science organization. The church responded loyally 
to the Leader's appeal, and at a meeting held in 
November reorganized its own board of trustees 
and accepted gratefully and lovingly the correction 
of error among its members. 

Following this episode of church history Mrs. 
Eddy gave to the field valuable doctrinal instruc- 
tion on two specific points, reprinting an excerpt 
of an address to the members of the Christian 
Science Association delivered in July, 1895, and 
also by replying to a letter of inquiry raised by 
a student in the West. The excerpt from her 
address, reprinted November 13, 1909, is as follows: 

My address before the Christian Science Associ- 
ation has been misrepresented and evidently mis- 
understood by some students. The gist of the 
whole subject was, not to malpractise unwittingly. 
In order to be sure that one is not doing this he 
must avoid naming in his mental treatment any 
other individual but the patient whom he is treat- 
ing, and practise only to heal. Any deviation 
from this direct rule is more or less dangerous. No 
mortal is infallible, — hence the Scripture, "Judge 
no man." The rule of mental practise in Christian 
Science is strictly to handle no other mentality but 
the mind of your patient, and treat this mind to 
be Christly. Any departure from this golden rule 
is inadmissible. This mental practise includes and 
inculcates the commandment, ''Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me." Animal magnetism, hyp- 
notism, etc., are disarmed by the practitioner who 
excludes from his own consciousness, and that of 
his patients, all sense of realism of any other cause 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL S89 

or effect save that which cometh from God. And 
he should teach his students to defend themselves 
from all evil, and to heal the sick by recognizing 
the supremacy and allness of good. This epito- 
mizes what heals all manner of sickness and disease, 
moral or physical. 

The instruction to the student in the West came 
almost a year later, being printed in the Sentinel 
September 3, 1910. It embodied the right stand- 
point of the Christian Scientist in the world to-day, 
and had an especial value in that it was almost the 
last word of the Leader to her church. The ques- 
tion and Mrs. Eddy's reply were as follows: 

Last evening I was catechized by a Christian 
Science practitioner because I referred to myself 
as an immortal idea of the one divine Mind. The 
practitioner said that my statement was wrong, 
because I still lived in my flesh. I replied that I 
did not live in my flesh, that my flesh lived or died 
according to the beliefs I entertained about it; 
but that, after coming to the light of Truth, I had 
found that I lived and moved and had my being 
in God, and to obey Christ was not to know as real 
the beliefs of an earthly mortal. Please give the 
truth in the Sentinel so that all may know it. 

Mrs. Eddy's reply. — You are scientifically cor- 
rect in your statement about yourself. You can 
never demonstrate spirituality until you declare 
yourself to be immortal and understand that you 
are so. Christian Science is absolute; it is neither 
behind the point of perfection nor advancing toward 
it; it is at this point and must be practised there- 
from. Unless you fully perceive that you are the 



390 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

child of God, hence perfect, you have no Principle 
to demonstrate and no rule for its demonstration. 
By this I do not mean that mortals are the children 
of God, — far from it. In practising Christian 
Science you must state its Principle correctly, or 
you forfeit your ability to demonstrate it. 

(Signed) Mary Baker Eddy. 

Mrs. Eddy's rejoicing over the healthy state of 
the church was further augmented in the month 
of November, 1909, by a letter received from the 
Associate Manager of the Committee on Publica- 
tion, which was published in the Sentinel with these 
words from Mrs. Eddy: 

Hear, O Israel. The following letter from Mr. 
Mattox tends to comfort, reconcile, and elevate 
the waiting hearts of all Christian Scientists: 

I have just returned from a six-weeks trip to the 
Northwest and the Pacific Coast, where I attended 
meetings of the state committees on publication 
and assistants. It may interest you to hear briefly 
of the nature of these meetings and of some of the 
conditions prevailing in the field. The energy and 
vigor of our great western country and of the Pacific 
coast are proverbial, and I found that this typical 
western alertness was characteristic of the Christian 
Scientists and of their work. 

The meetings were everywhere well attended, 
and the Scientists seemed eager to get any message 
that would improve the quality of their service 
and make them more intelligent and more effective 
workers in our great cause. I was most hospitably 
received, and it made me especially happy to notice 
everywhere a hearty and generous desire to sup- 
port the directors and all the activities at head- 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 391 

quarters. There were many expressions of grateful 
appreciation of the directors and others connected 
with the Mother Church. One man who came to 
the meeting at Portland, Oregon, traveled ninety 
miles over the mountains in a stage-coach before 
he reached the railroad line. This shows how keen 
the Scientists are for anything that will be a benefit 
to them. 

What impressed me most and what pleased me 
most were the evidences of the loving regard in 
which you are held by Christian Scientists every- 
where. Your wise leadership is recognized, and 
the genuine love for you which is being constantly 
expressed is so substantial and so potent a force 
for good that I feel sure it must encourage and 
sustain you. One gentleman, at the meeting at 
Los Angeles, said that he did not want the meeting 
to close without expressing his thanks for what he 
had got out of it, that the point which had im- 
pressed him most was the necessity for shielding 
and protecting our Leader. He said he could see, as 
never before, that this was one of the practical ways 
in which we could prove our gratitude and affection. 

The subject matter of the meetings seemed to 
be interesting and helpful to those who attended, 
and I sincerely hope, and have every reason to 
believe, that much good will result from this series 
of conferences. If the churches and societies of 
each state are brought into closer fellowship, if the 
ties are strengthened which unite in a common 
cause the Mother Church and the branch churches, 
if individual thought is aroused to more scientific 
and more consecrated activity, the purposes of the 
meetings will have been achieved. 

And this month of November, 1909, which had 
witnessed the subsidence of controversy in New 



392 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

York, the founding of a beautiful outpost of the 
faith in the great city of London, and the arousing 
to a closer, vital relationship with the Mother 
Church of the whole Pacific coast, gave Mrs. Eddy 
also the comfort of being able to reconcile her 
son, George Glover, to her wise plans for him. 
The consummation of an agreement took place 
and was signed on November 10, 1909, between 
Mrs. Eddy and her son and her adopted son, by 
which settlement she transferred to George W. 
Glover and his family the sum of $245,000 and to 
Ebenezer J. Foster-Eddy the sum of $45,000. The 
sum given to her son, George Glover, was inclusive 
of the trust fund previously created by which she 
had conveyed securities valued at $125,000 to the 
guardianship of her counsel for his benefit, but 
which he had previously rejected, and also funds 
already paid for the benefit of himself and family. 
Her son and adopted son professed themselves 
satisfied with this settlement and executed deeds 
relinquishing all their present and prospective rights 
or expectant interests in their mother's estate, 
either as heirs-at-law or legatees under any pre- 
viously made will of Mrs. Eddy. They severally 
acknowledged that full particulars of her estate had 
been made known to them. The settlement was 
brought about through a series of conferences held 
between General F. S. Streeter, Mrs. Eddy's coun- 
sel, the Honorable Henry M. Baker, Mrs. Eddy's 
trustee, and former United States Senator William 
E. Chandler, counsel for the sons. On July 16, 
1910, she received her two grandsons at her home 



LIFE AT CHESTNUT HILL 393 

at Chestnut Hill, they having come East to visit 
her on her eighty-ninth birthday. 

It seems proper to state here that Mrs. Eddy 
throughout her life yearned with the natural solici- 
tation of a mother over her son and grandchildren; 
she made various and repeated eflforts to guide 
and direct them, to see that they were comfortably 
situated, and that her grandchildren were being 
properly educated and reared. She did not believe, 
however, that they required vast sums of money 
or great luxury to ensure their happiness, for she 
herself lived simply, never indulging in luxury. 
But she had given nearly fifty years of arduous 
labor to promulgate the doctrine of Christian 
Science and to establish the Christian Science 
church as the guardian in the world of this truth. 
She had accumulated a fortune which has been 
conservatively estimated at $2,000,000 at the time 
of her leaving this world. This had been largely 
the result of the sale of her writings, though some 
of it had been earned by the investment of the 
money from her books in securities. It is proper 
to say that the church which grew up on the basis 
of her doctrine, the church which so widely bought 
and read her books, had contributed largely to this 
fund. It was therefore eminently just, and revealed 
Mrs. Eddy's sincerity of motive and dearest purpose, 
that she should have left in her last will this sum 
to the Mother Church of Boston for the carrying 
out of a specific plan, to advance the cause of Chris- 
tian Science. 

After the demise of Mrs. Eddy the details of 



394 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

her will greatly interested the world. This was 
largely because her sons endeavored to have its 
provisions set aside. Mrs. Eddy's will gave $10,000 
to each of her four grandchildren in addition to 
the previous settlement with her sons; it gave be- 
quests to her secretary, Calvin A. Frye, and her 
companion, Laura E. Sargent, long faithful in her 
service, as household stewards. It provided for the 
lifting of the debt of Second Church of Christ, 
Scientist, New York City, and the sum of $100,000 
to be set aside for a trust fund to educate Chris- 
tian Science practitioners. The residue was left to 
the Mother Church as above set forth. The will 
was probated in Concord, New Hampshire, Jan- 
uary 17, 1911, by Mrs. Eddy's executor, one of the 
former trustees of her estate and her cousin, General 
Henry M. Baker. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

LIFT UP THY GATES 

OF Mrs. Eddy's daily life it is no longer possi- 
ble to speak in the present tense as it was 
happily one's privilege to do at the time of writ- 
ing the chapter of this book, "The Leader in Re- 
tirement." Mrs. Eddy has since then passed be- 
yond the veil which an all-wise Providence wraps 
around our period of mortal living, sheltering His 
children from the burden of a too great knowledge 
and the splendor of a too glorious vision. Her acts 
are no longer subject to mortal inspection. But 
of the time intervening between January 26, 1908, 
when she took up her residence at Chestnut Hill, 
and that evening of December 3, 1910, when she 
gently and silently withdrew from the theatre of 
the world's activity, a period of nearly three years, 
it is possible to speak briefly and simply. 

Her suite of rooms at Chestnut Hill had been 
arranged almost exactly like the rooms she used 
at Pleasant View, save for the fact that in this 
larger house she retained for herself a private 
sitting-room beside her study. The suite was in 
the southeast corner of the mansion and was 
therefore sunny, and commanded a view of Brook- 
line reservoir, adjacent well kept estates on the Old 
Orchard road, and a distant view of the Blue Hills. 



396 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

The house being in the midst of twelve acres was 
secluded; the landscape architecture of Brookline 
is world famous and Chestnut Hill towered above 
a vista which fell away from the rear of the man- 
sion in beautiful gradations. The bay window 
of Mrs. Eddy's study was encircled by a bal- 
cony which extended under the windows of her 
bedroom. Access to this was had through French 
windows opening like doors and here Mrs. Eddy 
was accustomed to walk to refresh herself for the 
renewal of her work. In summer her own grounds 
and the adjacent estates became a veritable para- 
dise of lawn and shrubbery, of flowers, birds, and 
bees. Mrs. Eddy's grounds were like an ItaKan 
garden f aUing in terraces to the beautiful flower 
court. 

The interior of her study and bedroom were 
kept much as at Pleasant View. The bedroom 
was most simple, having a three-quarter bed of 
walnut and a bureau and dressing-table of the 
same wood. In the study her flat-topped desk 
stood in front of the bay-window, her easy chair 
behind it. She could turn in this chair to a small 
book-case which held the books most often re- 
quired, she could look out over the hills, or, turn- 
ing in the opposite direction she could command 
a view of the driveway and the gates which opened 
on Beacon street. It became more and more her 
habit to sit here looking out at those gates. After 
coming to Boston she took her usual daily drive 
around the reservoir and through the charming 
country roads and boulevards. At Chestnut Hill 



LIFT UP THY GATES 397 

she resisted the idea that she must drive or be re- 
ported ill, and claimed for herself the privilege of 
respecting her business claims or considering the 
welfare of her horses in inclement weather. Nev- 
ertheless her drives were an almost invariable 
custom with her for an hour after luncheon. On 
these outings she was usually accompanied by 
Mrs. Sargent, who has said that she was pleased 
at the sight of httle children in the care of their 
nurses whom they often passed, and would kiss her 
hand to them and smile at their return of her 
salute. She regarded them, trooping along under 
the care of their nurse-maids, as her little colony 
of neighbors whose innocent looks and ways made 
the roads and gardens populous with tender 
ideas. 

Mrs. Eddy's daily routine continued about the 
same at Chestnut Hill as it had been at Concord. 
Her household was increased by several members, 
which the larger house gave opportunity for ac- 
commodating and the larger needs of her affairs 
made necessary. Adam H. Dickey was now her 
secretary, and the assisting secretaries were Irving 
C. Tomhnson and W. R. Rathvon. Mr. Frye 
remained in the capacity in which he had been so 
long employed, and Mrs. Rathvon assisted Mrs. 
Sargent. Various members of the household were 
summoned from time to time to Mrs. Eddy's study 
for conversation, and these hours with their Leader 
became sacred opportunities to each one, as day 
after day melted into eternity. Also at regular 
intervals she received members of her larger house- 



398 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

hold, the officers of The Mother Church, who 
waited upon her for that contact of mind which 
should hold their course true in the voyage of 
experience which devolved upon each. 

It was in the days toward the end of her earthly 
pilgrimage that Mrs. Eddy grew accustomed to 
sit after her evening meal with chair turned toward 
the vista before her home. She looked long at 
the drive, watching for the light to come in the 
electric globes on either side of the iron gates. 
She would sit here far into the twilight and even- 
ing until the stars twinkled in the night sky above 
the lights at the gate. So she would often in silence 
commune with the thoughts which filled her con- 
sciousness, sometimes reaching out her hand to 
the tiny electric light which rested on her desk and 
pressing its button illuminate a page of her Bible 
or "Science and Health." 

On the first day of December, she declared her 
wish to take her usual drive, and this proved to 
be her last drive. This was Thursday, a pleasant 
day, and all the bright, frosty beauty of early 
winter lay over the wooded country, the balsam 
of the evergreens faintly perfuming the air. Mr. 
Frye and Mrs. Sargent accompanied Mrs. Eddy 
on the drive, and were observant of the heavenly 
smile with which she surveyed the distant hills 
before stepping into the carriage. On the drive 
she passed her little neighbors as usual, lifting her 
hand slightly to them as she passed each merry 
group, the smile deepening in her eyes and settling 
faintly about her lips. When she had reached 



LIFT UP THY GATES 399 

home she rested for a while in her study and then 
asked Mrs. Sargent to bring her pencil and tablet. 
On the tablet she wrote: 

"God is my Life." 

Her message seemed written for the world, for 
though she spoke to her family after that, these 
were her last written words. 

It was apparent to those who were used to her 
habits of living that she was withdrawing from 
them minute by minute after this drive. On 
Thursday evening she had her supper in her bed- 
chamber. On Friday she arose and was dressed, and 
remained for almost the usual hours in her study, 
but did no writing. She retired to her bed that 
night not to rise again in this world. Members 
of her household watched with her and she spoke 
with them, assuring them she felt no pain. She 
was conscious that her students were opening their 
minds to the realization of Life; this conscious 
thought was, as it had been for fifty years, her great 
and only physician. As one falling asleep, at a 
quarter before eleven o'clock, Saturday night, she 
ceased to breathe, passing out of earth consciousness. 

In compliance with laws of Massachusetts which 
require that a medical examiner shall issue a death 
certificate where there has been no physician in 
charge at the hour of physical dissolution. Dr. 
George L. West of Newton Centre, medical exam- 
iner for the district, was summoned early Sunday 
morning. Dr. West, after the usual investigation, 
pronounced death due to natural causes and issued 
the customary certificate. 



400 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

In the New York Herald for December 5, the 
unusual experience of the medical exaniiner is 
described in these words: 

The request to Dr. West that he go to the mag- 
nificent home of Mrs. Eddy in Chestnut Hill and 
view the body with the idea of granting a certifi- 
cate of death was received about nine o'clock in 
the morning from Edward F. Woods, an alderman 
of Newton Centre, and Dr. West departed at once 
for the house in Brookline. On reaching there Dr. 
West was ushered at once into an upper front 
room in which on the bed, and clad in a heavy 
white robe, was the body of the Leader of the 
Christian Science cult. There were several per- 
sons in the room at the time, and several others 
were observed moving about other parts of the 
house by Dr. West as he entered and as he left. 
They were members of the Christian Science faith. 

"To me it merely was the performance of a per- 
functory duty," said Dr. West in comment. "Al- 
though, had I realized at the moment that I was 
in the presence of the body of a woman who had 
ruled thousands for many years, I might have 
been impressed with the importance of the official 
service I was performing. What struck me most 
as I looked into the dead face was its extraordinary 
beauty. She must have been a beautiful child, 
a beautiful maiden, and extraordinarily beautiful 
when in the full flower of womanhood. There 
still were substantial traces of beauty left in the 
white face reposing on the pillow. Time indeed 
had laid its hand lightly on her all through the 
years. Wrinkles there were, of course, but they 
were not the wrinkles that come with age, after 
a life fraught with the cares of a home, of the 



LIFT UP THY GATES 401 

bringing up of children, or of a thousand and one 
things that arise in the hfe of the ordinary woman 
to furrow her brow. The wrinkles that she bore 
looked more as if some one had been playing a 
little prank, and as if they might be brushed away 
with the gentle smoothing of a hand. They did 
not seem to belong amid those features. The 
entire countenance bore a placid, serene expres- 
sion, which could not have been sweeter had the 
woman fallen away in sleep in the midst of pleas- 
ant thoughts. I do not recall ever seeing in death 
before a face which bore such a beautifully tranquil 
expression." 

The news of the passing from earth life of their 
Leader was given to the congregation of the Mother 
Church a little before twelve o'clock on Sunday, 
December 4, and at about the same hour tele- 
grams were sent to the Christian Science publi- 
cation committees throughout the world and a 
statement of what had passed at Chestnut Hill was 
given to the associated press and local press repre- 
sentatives. Calvin Frye sent a personal telegram 
Sunday morning to George W. Glover, Lead, South 
Dakota, as follows: 

I regret to inform you that your mother passed 
quietly away late Saturday night after a few days' 
illness. Funeral arrangements will be delayed 
until we are advised whether you or any of your 
family will be present and when we may expect 
you. 

By reason of the lateness of the hour on Satur- 
day when the great change transpired it was not 

26 



402 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

necessary, indeed not possible, to give the in- 
formation to the press before it was given to the 
Church. Christian Scientists, therefore, all over 
the world received the news from their readers' 
lips. The attendants at the Mother Church were 
informed at the morning service, elsew^here the 
news was given out at afternoon or evening ser- 
vices. In Boston the morning services were eon- 
ducted as usual. There is seldom any break in 
the formality of the Sunday worship, and on the 
morning of December 4, 1910, there was none until 
just before the pronunciation of the benediction. 
Then the first reader. Judge Clifford P. Smith, 
paused impressively after reciting "the scientific 
statement of being," ^ and the reading of its cor- 
relative scripture, I John, Chapter III, verses 1, 2, 
and 3, which are: 



Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called the 
sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, 
because it knew him not. 

Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we 
know that when he shall appear, we shall be like 
him; for we shall see him as he is. 

And every man that hath this hope in him puri- 
fieth himself, even as he is pure. 

Those who had already bowed their heads for 
the benediction lifted them as the reader, refraining 

1 See page 275. 



LIFT UP THY GATES 40S 

from pronouncing it, began to deliver his message, 
and they received it in calmness to the close, after 
which there was no display of emotion beyond the 
fact that many eyes filled with tears. The message 
was given in these words: 

I shall now read part of a letter written by our 
revered Leader and reprinted on page 135 of 
''Miscellaneous Writings": 

"My Beloved Students, — You may be look- 
ing to see me in my accustomed place with you, 
but this you must no longer expect. When I re- 
tired from the field of labor it was a departure 
socially, publicly, and finally from the routine of 
such material modes as society and our societies 
demand. Rumors are rumors, nothing more. I 
am still with you in the field of battle, taking for- 
ward marches, broader and higher views, and with 
the hope that you will follow. All our thoughts 
should be given to the absolute demonstration of 
Christian Science. You can well afford to give me 
up since you have in my last revised editions of 
* Science and Health ' your teacher and guide." 

Although these lines were written years ago, 
they are true to-day, and will continue to be true. 
But it has now become my duty to announce that 
Mrs. Eddy passed from our sight last night at 
10.45 o'clock, at her home in Chestnut Hill. 

After the pronunciation of the benediction the 
congregation seemed held in an awesome spell, as 
the top crest of a wave seems to hang before it 
breaks. A flood of music from the great organ 
seemed to release the suspension, the recessional 
being a Toccata of Bach's which filled the church 



404 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

with radiant tone color, like a burst of triumphant 
celestial voices. The solo had been the comfort- 
ing Twenty-fourth Psalm, phrases of which seemed 
yet to circle under the vast dome, or sink into the 
hearts of the devotional hearers: 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates; 

And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors. 

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, 

Or who shall stand in his holy place .^^ 

He that hath clean hands and a pure heart. 

Lift up your heads, O ye gates ! 

On Thursday morning, December 8, services of 
interment were held at Chestnut Hill. All the 
world seemed covered with white snow. It was a 
bright, cold day and the sun gave to the snow 
a brilliance which made it appear a sacred, radiant 
carpet. About fifty guests, among whom were the 
members of Mrs. Eddy's family, her personal 
students of Boston, the members of her household, 
and the officers of the Mother Church, also a few 
distinguished jurists and statesmen, assembled in 
the parlors of the house. They sat in silence from 
about a quarter before eleven until the hour struck, 
after which Judge Smith read the Ninety-first 
Psalm, and portions of St. John, thirteenth and 
fourteenth chapters, also passages from '' Science 
and Health." Mrs. Carol Hoyt Powers, the second 
reader of the Mother Church, read Mrs. Eddy's 
poem, "Mother's Evening Prayer," and Our Lord's 
prayer was recited by all. A procession then 
formed to pass the bier, a ceremony which was 



LIFT UP THY GATES 405 

performed with deliberation and consideration for 
the earnest desire of each one present to gaze upon 
the features of the departed Leader. 

Sunshine filtered through the partly drawn white 
shades and rose-colored draperies of the drawing- 
room, especially in the southeast corner of the 
second drawing-room where in the bay-window 
on a catafalque stood the bronze casket, a sheaf of 
pink roses across its foot. Enshrined therein was 
a pallid, waxen figure, like a perfect model or 
masque of life, the gray hair brushed from the 
white brow whereon seemed written in memorable 
expressiveness the word "Principle." The figure 
was clothed in a simple white silk gown over which 
was wrapped a shawl of white lace, stretching from 
throat to feet, as though loving hands had wound 
this mortal clay with yards of filmy, fine-spun 
fabric as a last tribute of tenderness. 

When all had passed in slow defile, the bearers 
closed the casket and lifted it to their shoulders. 
They bore it out through the wide hall, walking 
after a group of distinguished men who had been 
especially singled out for the honorary escort. 
These loving students, some elderly and white- 
haired, some in the full prime of stalwart manhood, 
walked proudly with their burden, tears unheeded 
bathing their faces. At the sight of these men 
escorting the bearers, a white-haired jurist, a former 
governor of the Commonwealth, one of the fore- 
most journalists of the United States, and of these 
gifted men of the Church from London, New York, 
Chicago, with that body lifted high among them, 



406 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

the wonder of the life which had animated that 
clay irresistibly swept the consciousness of all. 
That life, lived for forty years in the mountains of 
New Hampshire, which had come out of its hill 
refuge with God to a strenuous active life in the 
world for half a century, and but yesterday laid 
down its burden at ninety years, had well demon- 
strated that its Principle was Life and Love. 

The casket was placed in a tomb of steel and 
cement at Mt. Auburn, near Boston, where it was 
sealed, and guarded until the seal was inviolable. 
Here rest the ashes of the mortal garment of Mary 
Baker Eddy, near the shores of Lake Halcyon, tall 
English poplars rearing their plumy heads above 
it, and here is raised a memorial which shall mark 
an epoch in the progress of the world. 

But it is well to be reminded that in Mt. Auburn 
does not rest the real life and being of this great 
Leader. From the Atlantic to the Pacific the Press 
of the great cities of America lifted the voice of 
tribute to her influence and work in the uplifting 
of the human race. No newspaper of importance in 
the civilized world failed to pay editorial homage. 

As there was, following the interment of Mrs. 
Eddy, a widespread query as to whether Christian 
Scientists believed that Mrs. Eddy would return 
to this world, and whether there was some mystic 
doctrine involved in the placing of a guard at her 
tomb, it is well to record here the statement which 
Alfred Farlow gave to the world, and which was 
entirely based on Mrs. Eddy's own words. Mr. 
Farlow said: 



LIFT UP THY GATES 407 

There was no mysticism or supernaturalism in 
the minds of the persons who placed the guards at 
the entrance of Mrs. Eddy's tomb. It was done 
for the usual reasons. Many years ago Mrs. Eddy 
caused to be published the following statement: 

'' A despatch is given to me calling for an answer. 
Am I the second Christ .^^ 

"Even the question shocks me. What I am is 
for God to declare in His infinite mercy. As it is 
I claim nothing more than what I am, the discov- 
erer and founder of Christian Science, and the 
blessing it has been to mankind which eternity 
unfolds. 

" My books and teachings maintain but one con- 
clusion and statement of the Christ and the deifica- 
tion of mortals. . . . There was, is, and ever can 
be but one God, one Jesus of Nazareth. Whoever 
in any age expresses most of the spirit of truth and 
love, the principle of God's idea, has most of the 
spirit of Christ. 

'*If Christian Scientists find in my writings, 
teachings, and example, a greater degree of this 
spirit than in others, they can justly declare it. 
But to think or speak of me in any manner as a 
Christ is sacrilegious. Such a statement would not 
only be false, but the absolute antipode of Chris- 
tian Science, and would savor more of heathenism 
than of my doctrines." 

Mr. Farlow continues: 

While absolute Christian Science teaches that 
all is Spirit and Spirit's manifestation it does not 
ignore the relative fact — the temporal and false 
appearance — that in our present immature con- 
dition we have more or less of a misconception of 
creation which will improve and eventually disap- 



408 THE LIFE OF MARY BAKER EDDY 

pear as we advance spiritually and that eventually 
we will be able to see all things as God sees them in 
all their spirituality and perfection. 

While Christian Scientists believe the Scriptural 
teaching that the time will come when there will 
be no more death, they take the common-sense 
view that centuries may pass meanwhile before 
this exalted spiritual estate is reached. 

Christian Scientists believe the Scriptural teach- 
ing concerning the resurrection, that it means a 
putting off of mortality and a putting on of im- 
mortality. In other words a gradual spiritual 
growth wherein the individual makes a transition 
from a material condition to a spiritual condition. 

They believe that the resurrection begins in this 
life and continues here or hereafter until perfection 
is attained. This is the belief that they entertain 
concerning Mrs. Eddy. They do not look for her 
return to this world. 

But Mrs. Eddy taught immortality of the in- 
dividual consciousness, and immortality is every- 
where the underlying spiritual significance of her 
writings. Before her individual form fades from 
our vision in the lovelier realms of a more ethereal- 
ized condition, it may be well to fix her thought of 
the future life in her own words. She has said: 

Truth demonstrated is eternal Life. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



AcKLAND, James, student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 265, 266 

Adams and Co., rejection of MS. 
of Science and Health by, 210, 
211 

Alcott, Bronson, 176 ; quoted, 304 

Louisa M., meeting with Mrs. 

Eddy, 305 ; her article in the Wo- 
man's Journal, 306 ; Mrs. Eddy's 
reply to, 306 

Aldrich, Hon. Edgar, the suit in 
equity, 366, 367 

Allen, George H., 227 

Ambrose, Abigail, wife of Mark 
Baker, 7; her abilities, 13; her 
character, 14 ; her death, 45 

Deacon Nathaniel, 7 

American, the New York, statement 
of Mrs. Eddy's printed in, 313, 314 

Amesbury, Mass., Mrs. Eddy's so- 
journ in, 175-192 

Appleton, Jane, wife of Franklin 
Pierce, 51 

Arens, Edward J., student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 242-245 ; accused of con- 
spiracy to murder Spofford, 247- 
249 ; case not prosecuted, 249 ; 
facts of the conspiracy against, 252- 
258 ; pirates work of Mrs. Eddy, 
274-276 ; enjoined from distribut- 
ing his pamphlet, 276, 296, 297 

Armstrong,Joseph, Mrs. Eddy'spub- 
hsher, 335 ; the suit in equity, 363 ; 
his death, 378 ; Mrs. Eddy's tribute 
to, 379 



Bagley, Miss Sarah, Mrs. Eddy 
boards with, 179-181 ; takes up 
healing as a profession, 181 ; her 
perversion of Mrs. Eddy's teaching, 
181 ; Mrs. Eddy returns to live 
with, 188, 189 ; refuses to be guided 
by Mrs. Eddy, 207 

Squire Lowell, 179, 180 

Bailey, Joshua, editorship of The 
Christian Science Journal, 295 

Baker, Abigail, 12 ; wife of Alexander 
Tilton, 32, 35 ; son Albert born, 43 ; 
daughter Evelyn born, 44; Mrs. 
Eddy hves with, 49 ; kindness to 
Mrs. Eddy during her illness, 57 ; 
opposes Mrs. Eddy's visit to Quim- 
by, 78, 79 ; sends her to Hill, 79, 
80 ; her disillusionment concerning 
Quimby, 107 ; takes Dr. Patterson 
to task, 119 ; offers Mrs. Eddy a 
home, 139 ; endeavors to dissuade 
her from divine heahng, 139, 140 ; 
visited by Mrs. Eddy, 172 

Albert, 12; enters Dartmouth 

College, 21 ; takes up law, 21 ; at- 
tracts Franklin Pierce, 25 ; love for 
his sister, Mrs. Eddy, 25, 26 ; he 
tutors Mrs. Eddy, 27, 28; nomi- 
nated for Congress, 36 ; his sudden 
death, 36 ; pretended spirit message 
from, 114, 115 

family, the, genealogy of, 3-6 

George, 12 ; enters mills at San- 

bornton Bridge, 32 ; becomes part- 
ner in Tilton mills, 32 ; increasing 



412 



INDEX 



prosperity, 44 ; appointed to Gov- 
ernor's staff, 44; marriage with 
P«Iartha Drew Rand, 45 ; moves to 
Baltimore, 45; visited by Mrs. 
Eddy in Tilton, 172 ; his death, 172 

Baker, George W. , nephew of Mrs. 
Eddy, his part in the suit in equity, 
363 

Hon. Henry M., trusteeship, 365, 

392, 394 

James, 4 

John, first in America, 5 

Captain Joseph, 5 

Joseph, son of Capt Joseph, 5 

Mark, father of Mrs. Eddy, 4, 

5 ; his farm at Bow, N. H., 11, 12, 
14, 15 ; his concern for Mrs. Eddy 
as a child, 18, 19 ; official duties, 
22-24 ; religious tenets, 23, 28, 29 ; 
in a lawsuit with Franklin Pierce, 
24, 25 ; dines with Gov. Pierce, 25 ; 
rehgious views conflict with Mrs. 
Eddy's, 28-31 ; moves to Tilton, 
32 ; death of his wife, 45 ; second 
marriage with Mrs. Ehzabeth 
Patterson Duncan, 45; death of, 
139 

Martha, 12; marriage with 

Luther Pillsbury, 35; visited by 
Mrs. Eddy, 172; her daughter, 
EUen, healed by Mrs. Eddy, 173 

Mary, see Mary Baker Eddy 

Samuel, 12; becomes a con- 
tractor in Boston, 21, 32; asso- 
ciation with George Washington 
Glover, 37 

Thomas, 5 

Thomas, son of Thomas, 6 

Ballou, Hosea, 157 

Baltimore, Md., 45, 51 

Bancroft, S. P., student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 210, 227 

Banner of Light, the, Mrs. Eddy's 
interview with editor of, 112 

Barre, Vt, Mrs. Eddy moves to, 326 



Barry, George, student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 210, 227, 229 ; conflict with 
Mr. Eddy, 231 ; brings suit against 
Mrs. Eddy, 233, 234 ; offers to drive 
Dr. Kennedy out of Lynn, 245, 
246 

Bartlett, Miss Juha, student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 265, 273, 284, 290 

Barton, Vt., 283 

Bates, General Erastus N., 290 

Beecher, Lyman, 156 

Belfast, Me., 83 

Bennington, battle of, 2 

Berry, Governor, 70 

Besse, Francis E., sells property to 
Mrs. Eddy, 213, 214 

Blackwell, Miss Ahce Stone, conduct 
of WoTnan^sJournaU 306 ; contribu- 
tion to The Christian Science Jour- 
nal, 306 

Blavatsky, Madame, Mrs. Eddy on 
theosophy of, 306 

Boscawen, N. H., 35, 50 

Bow, N. H. , birthplace of Mrs. Eddy, 
1 ; family Hfe at, 4 ; Mark Baker's 
farm at, 11, 12 

Bradshaw, Sue Ella, her connection 
with the California Metaphysical 
CoUege, 301 

Brown, Miss Lucretia, 240; brings 
suit against Spofford, 241, 242 

Bubier, S. M., Mrs. Eddy cared for 
at residence of, 128, 129 

Bull Run, battle of, 70 

Bunker Hill, battle of, 2 

Burkmar, Lucius, mesmeric subject 
of Phineas Quimby, 84 ; of John 
Bovee Dods, 85 

Burnett, Frances Hodgson, meeting 
with Mrs. Eddy, 305 

Burnham, " Priest," 23 

Buswell, Arthur True, studentof Mrs. 
Eddy's, 265, 266, 269, 283-286,290 ; 
editorship of The Christian Science 
Journal, 285, 293 ; his apostasy, 293 



INDEX 



413 



California Metaphysical College, 
the, 301 

Carr, Oren, 266 

Chamberlin, Judge Robert N., 366 

Chandler, Senator William E., coun- 
sel for " next friends " in suit in 
equity, 361, 367 ; counsel for Mrs. 
Eddy's sons, 392 

Channing, William Ellery, exponent 
of transcendentalism, 156, 157 

Charleston, S. C, 39 

Charlestown, Mass., 5 

Chase, Stephen A., trusteeship of, 
341 ; the suit in equitj', 363 

Cheney, RusseU, marriage with Ma_ 
hala Sanborn, 47 ; living in Groton, 
N. H., 60 

Chestnut Hill, Mass., home of Mrs. 
Eddy, 368, 371, 393, 395-398, 400, 
404 

Chicago, appeal for a teacher, 298 ; 
Mrs. Eddy's trip to, 300 ; her work 
there, 300, 301 ; founding of Illinois 
Christian Science Institute at, 301 ; 
meeting of national association in, 
316-321 

Chickering Hall, meeting-place of 
Boston church, 340 

Chippewa, battle of, 6 

Choate, Mrs. Clara, her visit to Mrs. 
Eddy, 263, 264 ; sent as a precursor 
to Boston, 272 ; delivers eulogy on 
Mr. Eddy, 281; restores health 
to Mr. Frye's mother, 287; her 
unwilhngness to go to Chicago, 
299 

George D., 265, 269, 281 

Christian Healing, publication of, 
315 

"Christian Science Home," 21£, 214 

Christian Science Journal, The, quoted, 
98, 130, 136 ; The Science of Man 
printed in, 189 ; quoted, 191 ; found- 
ing of the journal, 284, 285 ; its 
aims and scope, 291, 292, 373 ; its 



history, 293-296, 371, 372 ; quoted, 
304 ; contribution of James Henry 
Wiggin, 310-312; Mrs. Eddy's 
Chicago address printed in, 319 ; 
prints notice of dissolution of or- 
ganization, 339 

Christian Science Monitor, the, its 
germ, 371, 373; announcement in 
the Sentinel of, 374, 375; its first 
issue, 375; its mission, 375; cor- 
dially received, 376-377 

Christian Science Publishing House, 
the, erection of, 372-375 

Christian Science Publishing Society, 
the, occupies its new building, 372; 
announces the Christian Science 
Monitor, 374 

Church of Christ, Scientist, organized 
in Boston, 266; early meeting, 267; 
rebellion of, 268-270; Mrs. Eddy's 
decisive action, 271; dissolution of 
bonds of organization of, 339 

Church Manual, 381, 382 

Clark, Mrs. Ellen J., student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 265 

George, describes Mrs. Eddy's 

appearance and personality, 152- 
154 ; acts as witness for Mrs. Eddy, 
210 ; describes the first rejection of 
the MS. of Science and Healthy 210, 
211 

George D., Mrs. Eddy boards 

with family of, 144 

Miss Sarah J. , editorship of the 

Christian Science Journal, 295 

Clay, Henry, 50 

Cleveland, Rose Elizabeth, Mrs. 
Eddy's review of her edition of 
George Ehot, 306 

Collier, George, accomplice of James 
Sargeant, 254, 256, 257 

Concord, N. H. , Mrs. Eddy retires to, 
336 ; hfe in, 344-368 

Congress, the Continental, New 
Hampshire's delegates to, 2 



414 



INDEX 



Conway, Katherine, interview quoted, 
305 

Con well, Russell H. , attorney for Mr. 
Eddy in Spofford conspiracy, 255 

Corner, Mrs. Abby H., prosecuted 
for malpractice, 325 

Coming, Charles R. , 358 

Corser, Bartlett, 33-35 

Rev. Enoch, intellectual com- 
radeship with Mrs. Eddy, 33, 34 

Crafts, Hiram S., his acquaintance 
with Mrs. Eddy, 154 ; becomes her 
first pupil, 158-165; practises heal- 
ing, 164 

Mrs. (Hiram S.), her resent- 
ment of Mrs. Eddy's presence, 162— 
165 

Crosby, Ada, her devotion to Mrs. 
Eddy, 112, 113 

Crosby, Mrs. Sarah, meeting with 
Mrs. Eddy, 110 ; visited by Mrs. 
Eddy, 112; her belief in Spiritual- 
ism, 113; Mrs. Eddy's efforts to 
disillusion her, 113-116 

Crosse, Mrs. Sarah H., editorship 
of The Christian Science Journal, 
295; her disaffection, 295; accom- 
panies Mrs. Eddy to Chicago, 
300. 

Cushing, Dr. Alvin M., attends Mrs. 
Eddy, 127-129. 

Daman, Mrs. F. A., 270 

Daniels, Warren, 60 

Dartmouth College, founding of, 3; 
Albert Baker attends, 21 

Daughters of the American Revolu- 
tion, Mrs. Eddy becomes a member 
of, 352 

Davis, Andrew Jackson, on mesmer- 
ism, 55 

Day, Rev. George B., at meeting of 
national association in Chicago, 
318 



Dickey, Adam H., elected to direc- 
torship, 380, 382 

Dittemore, John V., elected to di- 
rectorship, 380 

Dixon, Frederick, quoted, 377 

Dods, John Bovee, mesmerist, 85, 
86 ; influence on Quimby, 89 

Dresser, Julius, 98; harasses Mrs. 
Eddy with a pamphlet, 136; his 
theories, 323 

Duncan, Mrs. Elizabeth Patterson, 
marriage with Mark Baker, 45 

Dunshee, Mrs. Margaret J., 266y 269 

Durant, S. Louise, 269 

Eastaman, Captain Joseph S., 317; 
trusteeship, 341 

Eddy, Asa Gilbert, his acquaintance 
with Mrs. Eddy, 229 ; his person- 
ality, 230; conflict with Spofford, 
231 ; marriage with Mrs. Eddy, 
232; teaching, 247 ; accused of con- 
spiracy to murder Spofford, 247- 
249 ; case not prosecuted, 249 ; 
facts of the conspiracy against, 252- 
258 ; protects Mrs. Eddy's works, 
274; arraignment of Arens, 275, 
276 ; his death, 277-281 

E. J. Foster, see E. J. Foster- 
Eddy 

Mary Baker, unfounded rumors 

concerning, xiv-xvi ; birthplace, 1 ; 
her ancestry, 3-8; her birth, 12; 
influence of her grandmother, 13- 
19; her *' voices," 18-20; early 
schoohng, 21, 22; her love for her 
brother Albert, 25, 26, 37; her 
ardent desire for learning, 27 ; her 
precocity, 27, 28; her devotion, 28; 
early religious views at variance 
with her father's, 28-31 ; early ill- 
ness dispelled by prayer, 30; makes 
a religious profession, 31 ; becomes 
the pupil of Prof. Sanborn, 33; in- 
tellectual comradeship with Rev. 



INDEX 



415 



Enoch Corser, 33, 34 ; she subdues 
a lunatic, 35 ; her personal appear- 
ance, 36 ; grief over death of her 
brother Albert, 3T ; marriage with 
George Washington Glover, 38, 39 
goes to live in Charleston, S. C. , 39 
her attitude toward slavery, 39, 40 
goes to Wilmington, N. C, 41 ; her 
husband's death, 41 ; kindness 
shown her by the Masons, 41, 42 ; 
she frees her slaves, 42 ; returns to 
her father's home, 42 ; birth of a 
son, 42; her illness and recovery,43; 
death of hermother, 45; contributes 
political articles to the Patriot, 46 ; 
teaches in the N. H. Conference 
Seminary, 46 ; unsuccessful experi- 
ment with an infants' school, 46 ; 
separated from her son George, 
47, 48; hves with her sister Abigail, 
49 ; her pohtical position, 52, 53 ; 
her association with Spiritualism, 
55 y 56; her ilhiess, 56, 57; her mar- 
riage with Dr. Daniel Patterson, 57- 
59; her hfe in Franklin, N. H., 59, 
60; moves to Groton, N. H., 60; 
her extreme invalidism, 62 ; re- 
united to her son George, 62 ; he 
is again taken from her, 63 ; begin- 
ning of her idea of Divine healing, 
64 ; removes to Rumney, 68 ; her 
observation of the laws of hygiene, 
69, 70 ; her suffering, 70, 71 ; seek- 
ing for the law of Divine healing, 
72-81 ; she cures the blind child, 
73, 74; she prepares to visit Quimby, 
78; sent to Hill, 79, 80; visits 
Quimby, 81; the extent of his influ- 
ence on her, 88; released from pain 
by him, 90 ; her faith in him, 91 ; 
imparts to him his idea of Divine 
healing, 91-93 ; endeavors to reduce 
this idea to a philosophic basis, 93- 
95; her statement concerning Quim- 
by's practise, 98 ; her idealization 



of Quimby, 106, 107 ; her efforts to 
hberate her husband, 108; life in 
Tilton, 108, 109; fears a return of 
her illness, 109, 110; returns to 
Portland, 110; her efforts to believe 
in "Quimbyism," 111; defends 
Quimby, 112; visits Mrs. Crosby, 
112 ; her efforts to free Mrs. Cros- 
by's mind from spirituaUsticbehefs, 
113-116 ; joins her husband in 
Lynn, 117; friendships formed, 
120; social intercourse, 121, 122; 
her early writings, 123, 124 ; spirit- 
ual development, 124-127; her 
" fall," 127 ; her miraculous recov- 
ery, 130, 131; revelation of the prin- 
ciple of Christian Science, 132; her 
last connection with Quimbyism, 
134, 135 ; her reply to Julius Dress- 
er's pamphlet, 136 ; deserted by her 
husband, 137-139 ; refuses to give 
up her mission, 139 ; her loneliness, 
141 ; her purpose henceforth, 141, 
142; her association with the Phil- 
hpses, 144-146; her first demon- 
stration of Mind-science, 146-148 ; 
other demonstrations, 148-151 ; her 
appearance and personality de- 
scribed, 152-154 ; instructs Hiram 
Crafts in Christian Science, 158 ; 
goes to Stoughton and boards with 
the Crafts, 160; her relations with 
them, 161-165 ; beginning of the 
preparation to state Christian Sci- 
ence, 166, 167 ; preparing a new 
terminology', 168, 169 ; her visit to 
her sister, 172, 173 ; heals her niece, 
173 ; returns to Taunton, 173 ; goes 
to Amesbury, 175 ; her sojourn at 
the house of Mrs. Webster, 176-178; 
boards with Miss Bagley, 179-181; 
meets Whittier, 180 ; goes to Uve 
with Mrs. Wentworth, 182; in- 
structs her in healing, 182, 183 ; 
returns to Miss Bagley, 188 ; com- 



416 



INDEX 



pletes The Science of Man, 189 ; 
her period of preparation completed, 
190-192; she determines to expound 
Christian Science, 193 ; returns to 
Lynn, 195 ; boards with Miss Ma- 
goun, 196, 197 ; the first classes in 
Christian Science, 198, 199; her 
teaching perverted or misunder- 
stood by her first students, 200-207; 
she determines to write a text- 
book, 206, 207 ; preparation of the 
MS. of Science and Health, 208-210; 
its rejection by Adams and Co., 
210, 211 ; buys a home, 212, 213; 
arrangements for printing the 
first edition, 214, 215 ; her claim 
to authorship disputed, 216-219; 
classes formed to promulgate Chris- 
tian Science, 222-225; first step 
toward a church, 225, 227; influ- 
ence over her students, 228 ; ac- 
quaintance with Asa Gilbert Eddy, 
229, 230; preparation for second 
edition of Science and Health, 231; 
marriage with Mr. Eddy, 232 ; re- 
stores harmony among her students, 

232, 233 ; sued by George Barry, 

233, 234; difficulties with Spof- 
ford, 235-245 ; correspondence with 
George Barry, 245, 246; the conspir- 
acy against Mr. Eddy, 247-258; 
preparation for greater activity, 
259, 260 ; she carries the work into 
Boston, 260, 261 ; home life, 262 ; 
visited by Mrs. Choate, 263, 264 ; 
description of her personal appear- 
ance, 264; her students, 265; church 
organized, 2QQ\ her regular ser- 
mons, 267; rebellion, 268-270 ; her 
decisive action, 271 ; third edition 
of Science and Health, 273 ; pre- 
pares to leave Lynn, 273 ; visits 
Washington, 274 ; protection of her 
works, 274^276; makes her home 
in Boston, 276 ; death of Mr. Eddy, 



277-281 ; her self-control, 282 ; re- 
tires to Vermont for a rest, 283, 
284; foundmg of The Christian 
Science Journal, 284, 285; Calvin 
A. Frye chosen as her steward, 285- 
288 ; her house in Boston, 288 ; her 
reception, 289 ; the Massachusetts 
Metaphysical College, 289-291 ; her 
contribution to The Christian Science 
Journal, 292, 293; prosecution of 
infringement of her copyrights, 296, 
297 ; need of a teacher in the West, 
298, 299; Mrs. Eddy's trip to 
Chicago, 300 ; her work there, 300- 
302 ; formation of the national as- 
sociation, 302-304 ; Boston's inter- 
est in Mrs. Eddy, 304, 305; reply 
to Miss Alcott's article, 306; her 
appreciation of George Eliot, 306 ; 
influence on Miss Lilian Whiting, 
307, 308 ; revision of Science and 
Health, 309; engages services of 
James Henry Wiggin, 309-313; 
seeks rest in New Hampshire, 314 ; 
new publications, 315; need of 
seclusion, 315 ; her Commonwealth 
Avenue home, 315, 316; attends 
meeting of national association in 
Chicago, 316-320 ; her address, 318, 
319 ; impromptu reception, 321 ; 
her dislike of pubhcity, 321 ; re- 
solves to withdraw from the world, 
322 ; rebellion within the associa- 
tion, 323-326; her plans to safe- 
guard the organization, 327 ; closes 
the college, 327 ; dissolves the or- 
ganization of the Boston church, 
327-329; visit from her son, George 
Glover, 330-333; her disappoint- 
ment in him, 332, 333 ; adopts E. J. 
Foster-Eddy, 334 ; makes him her 
publisher, 335 ; her disappointment 
in him, 336 ; not satisfied with Barre 
or Roslindale, 336; retires to Con- 
cord, N. H., 336,337; •* Pleasant 



INDEX 



417 



View," 338; dissolution of the bonds 
of organization, 339 ; organization 
of the Mother Church, 340-^42; 
elected pastor emeritus, 342; her Hfe 
in Concord, 344, 345; her habits, 
345, 346 ; visits the Mother Church, 
347; receptions in Concord, 348, 
349 ; publication of Miscellaneous 
Writings, 350; teaches one more 
class, 351 ; privacy of her life, 353 ; 
the new church in Boston, 354, 355; 
invasion of her privacy by news- 
paper men, 356-361 ; the suit in 
equity, 361-367 ; changes her resi- 
dence to Chestnut HiU, 368, 371 ; 
cherishes purpose to establish a 
daily newspaper, 371, 372; begins 
publication of the Christian Science 
Monitor, 373-377 ; letter to Board 
of Directors, 380 ; letter to Board 
of Trustees of First Church of New 
York City, 381; letters in the 
Sentinel, 382, 384, 385; churches 
established in London and Edin- 
burgh, 386-388; episode of First 
Church of New York City, 387- 
391; correspondence with Mr. 
Mattox, 390-391; her permission 
for George W. Glover and Dr. 
Foster-Eddy, 392, 393; her prop- 
erty and will, 392-394; her life at 
Chestnut Hill, 395-398; her death, 
399-404; interment services, 404- 
405; her casket placed in Mt. 
Auburn, 406 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 4, 54, 156, 
157 

Evans, Dr. Warren F., 323 

Fabyans, N. H., Mrs. Eddy at, 314 
Farlow, Alfred, interview with, 240; 
head of Publication Committee, 
357; the suit in equity, 363; his 
statement on resurrection, 406- 
408 



Fernald, Josiah E., Mrs. Eddy's 
banker, 358 ; trusteeship, 365 

Fletcher, Richard, 21 

Foley, Margaret J., 266 

Foster-Eddy, Dr. Ebenezer Johnson, 
290; accompanies Mrs. Eddy to 
Chicago, 317 ; adopted by her, 334 ; 
his character, 334, 335 ; acts as Mrs. 
Eddy's pubhsher, 335 ; his misman- 
agement of a mission, 335, 336 ; his 
part in the suit in equity, 363 ; 
Mrs. Eddy's provision for, 392 

Fox sisters, the, 55 

Franklin, N. H., 59, 60 

Frye, Calvin A., becomes Mrs. Eddy's 
Steward, 285-288; copies her MS., 
314; accompanies her to Chicago, 
317; his faithful services, 345, 357, 
358, 398, 401, the suit in equity, 
363—365; given bequest in Mrs. 
Eddy's will, 394 

Lydia, 287, 288 

Fryeburg, Me., 6 

Fuller, Margaret, on transcendental- 
ism, 157 



Gates, Professor Elmer, on the causa- 
tive character of thinking, 278 

Gestafeld, Mrs. Ursula, leads rebeUion 
in Chicago, 302 

Glover, George W. , son of Mrs. Eddy, 
birth of, 42; nursed by Mahala 
Sanborn, 43; early training, 44; 
separated from his mother, 47, 48 ; 
living in Groton, N. H., 60; re- 
united to his mother, 62 ; again 
separated from her, 63; his later 
career, 63, 64 ; writes to his mother, 
71; visits his mother, 330-333; 
encounters Kennedy, 331 ; his part 
in the suit in equity, 361-367 ; Mrs. 
Eddy's provision for, 392-394 ; in- 
formed of Mrs. Eddy's death, 401 

George Washington, meets Mrs. 



418 



INDEX 



Eddy, 37 ; their marriage, 38, 39 ; 

goes to Wilmington, N. C, 41 ; his 

death, 41 
Mary Baker, daughter of George 

W. Glover, 363 
Glover, Mrs. Mary Baker, see Mary 

Baker Eddy 
Godfrey, Mrs., healed by Mrs. Eddy, 

Good Templars, the, Mrs. Eddy'scon- 

nection with, 122 
Groton, N. H., 60, 61 ; Mrs. Eddy's 

life in, 61-66 

Haie, Edward Everett, 310 

Hale, John P., nominated for Presi- 
dent, 51 

Hammond, Edward H., 290 

Hanna,Judge Septimus J., editorship 
of The Christian Science Journal 
295; first reader in the Mother 
Church, 347 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 4, 25 ; his 
*' Life of Franklin Pierce," 51 

Herald, the Boston, prints interview 
supposed toconcern Mrs. Eddy, xiv ; 
prints article concerning supposed 
murder of Spofford, 247 ; interview 
with Mrs. Eddy, 353, 354; offers 
good wishes to the Christian Science 
Monitor, 376 

the Newburyport, 243 

the New York, statement of 

Dr. West's printed m, 401, 402 

the Washington, quoted, 278 

Herbert, John, 68 

Hering, Hermann S.,35 9, 363 

Herold, der Christian Science, Der, 
established, 372 ; its mission, 375 

Hicks, Elias, leader of the Quakers, 
157 

Hill, Hon. Isaac, urges Mrs. Eddy to 
write political articles, 46 

HiUsborough, N. H., 21, 32, 50 

Hopkins, Mrs. Emma, editorship of 



The Christian Science Journal, 293, 
300 ; her apostasy, 294, 295 

Howard, James C, 269 

Human Life, quoted, 102, 224, 225, 
240 

Huntoon, Mehitable, 19, 20 

Illinois Christian Science Institute, 

the, 301 
International Magazine of Christian 

Science, the, 295 
*' Ipswich Witchcraft Case," 240-243 

Jarvis, Mary Ann, meeting with Mrs. 

Eddy, 110 
Jeffersonian,\he Bangor, on Quimby's 

doctrine of health and disease, 86, 

87 
Jelly, Dr. George F., alienist in the 

suit in equity, 366 
Johnson, William B. , 324, 341, 363, 

379 

Kenxedy, Richard, quoted, 185, 186 ; 
instructed by Mrs. Eddy, 188 ; his 
desire to aid Mrs. Eddy in herwork, 
193, 194 ; accompanies her to Lynn, 
195 ; makes arrangements for an 
office, 195, 196 ; his unfitness for 
the work undertaken, 197 ; his per- 
version of her teaching, 203-207 ; 
George Barry offers to drive him 
out of Lynn, 245, 246 ; admonished 
by George Glover, 321 

Kidder, Daniel, instructed by Mrs. 
Eddy, Q5 

John, 61 

Mark, 64 

Kimball, Edward A., 363 

Knapp, IraO. , studentof Mrs. Eddy's, 
274, 314, 338, 340, 341, 363; edi- 
torial commemorating, 380 

Ladd, Fred N., 358 
Lang, Alfred, 340 



INDEX 



419 



Leader, the Ohio, account of inter- 
view with Mrs. Eddy in, 307, 308 

Legion of Honor, the, Mrs. Eddy's 
connection with, 122, 123 

Leonard, Mrs. Pamelia J., 345, 358 

Literature, rise of American, 54 

Lovewell, Hannah, wife of Capt. Jo- 
seph Baker, 5 

Captain John, 5, 6 

Lynn, Mass., 110; Mrs. Eddy's life 
in, 117-160 ; her return to, 193-195 ; 
Mrs. Eddy's life in, 196-273 



MacDonald, Jessie, part in conspir- 
acy against Mr. Eddy and Arens, 
254, 255 

Macdonald, Asa T. N., 227 

Magnetism, animal, 54, 55 

malicious animal, 240, 276 

Magoun, Miss Susie, becomes Mrs. 
Eddy's landlord, 195, 196 

Mark, St., his gospel compared with 
Renan's " Life of Jesus," xii-xiii 

Mark Twain, attack on Science and 
Health, 216-218 

Mason, Rev. Frank, editorship of 
The Christian Science Journal, 295; 
his desertion, 295 

Massachusetts Metaphysical Col- 
lege, founding of, 272, 289-291; 
closing of, 339 

Mattox, Willard S., correspondence 
with Mrs. Eddy, 390-391 

May, Judge, 248 

McClure's Magazine, staterhent of 
Richard Kennedy quoted in, 205; 
letters of Mrs. Eddy quoted in, 235, 
236 

McLellan, Archibald, editorship of 
The Christian Science Journal, 296; 
trusteeship, 365; his announcement 
of the Christian Science Moni- 
tor, 374; editorial in the Monitor, 
376 



McNeil, Fanny, wife of Judge Potter, 

6; her visits to Bow, 24 

General John, 6 

John, 6 

Marion Moor, wife of Capt 

John Baker, 5, 6 ; her care of Mrs. 

Eddy in chUdhood, 13-19 

Sir John, 6 

Meehan, M., editor of the Concord 

Patriot, 358 
Mesmerism, 54, 55, 83-96 
Mind Healing, publication of, 315 
Miscellaneous Writings, quoted, 239, 

374 ; Mrs. Eddy's Chicago address 

printed in, 319 ; publication of, 344, 

350 
Monroe, Marcellus, 340 
Moor, Marion, wife of John McNeil, 

6 
More, Hannah, 17 
Morgan, Miss Martha, Mrs. Eddy's 

housekeeper, 336 
Morrison, Amos, 43 
Morton, Joseph, 269 
Moses, George H., 358 
Mother Church, the, preparation for, 

339; organization of, 340-342 ; vis- 
ited by Mrs. Eddy, 347 ; the new 

church, 354, 355 
Mt. Auburn, Mrs. Eddy's tomb in, 

406 

National Christian Scientist Associa- 
tion, its formation and work, 302- 
304 ; meeting in Chicago in 1888, 
316-320 ; adjournment of, 339 

New Hampshire, her part in the his- 
tory and independence of the 
United States, 1-4 ; conditions of 
Ufe in, at the time of Mrs. Eddy's 
birth, 9-11 

New Thought Movement, 323 

Newhall, Elizabeth, 227 ; aids in pub- 
lication of first edition of Science 
and Health, 229 



420 



INDEX 



Newman, Anna B., 269 

Nixon, William G., editorship of 

The Christian Science Journal, 295; 

his apostasy, 295; trusteeship, 

340 
No and Yes, publication of, 315 
Noyes, Dr. Rufus K., 277 

Ogden, David B., appointed business 
manager of the Publishing Society, 
379 

Oliver, George, attracted by Mrs. 
Eddy's conversation, 146 

Mrs. George, see Susan Phillips 

Ome, Edward A., 266 

Osborne, James W., quoted, 250 

OuUook, the London, quoted, 377 

Parker, Hon. Hosea W., 366 

Theodore, 157 

Patriot, the Concord, Mrs. Eddy eon- 
tributes to, 46 

Patterson, Dr. Daniel, his personahty 
and character, 58 59; marriage 
with Mrs. Eddy, 59; moves to Gro- 
ton, N. H., 60; difficulties, 65; re- 
moves to Rumney, 68, 69; captured 
by Confederates and sent to Libby 
Prison, 70; interested in Phineas P. 
Quimby, 74, 75; Uberated, 108; set- 
tles in Lynn, Mass., 109; resumes 
practise of dentistry, 119; his 
shallowness and vulgarity, 119, 
121, 122; his desertion of Mrs. 
Eddy, 137-139 

Patterson, Mary Baker, see Mary 
Baker Eddy 

Pembroke, N. H., 5, 7 

People's Idea of God, publication of, 
315 

Philbrick, Chase, detective in Spof- 
ford conspiracy, 254 

Phillips, Dorr, first demonstration of 
Mind-science made on, 146-148 



Phillips, Susan, wife of George Oliver, 
146, 195 

Thomas, befriends Mrs. Eddy, 

144 

Pierce, Frankhn, 4, 6, 21 ; in a 
lawsuit with Mark Baker, 24, 25; 
attracted by Albert Baker, 25 ; 
nominated for President, 51 ; his 
marriage with Jane Appleton, 51 

Governor Benjamin, 24 ; enter- 
tains Mark Baker, 25 

Pigwacket, Me., see Fryeburg 

Pike, Sarah, wife of Thomas Baker, 5 

Pillsbury, Luther, 35, 38 

Ellen, healed by Mrs. Eddy, 173; 

returns with her to Taunton, 173; 
her later antipathy toward Mrs. 
Eddy, 174 

Pilot, the, quoted, 305 

Pinkham, Hollis C, detective in Spof- 
ford conspiracy, 252-258 

Palmer House, Chicago, Mrs. Eddy's 
stay in, 320, 321 

Plunkett, Mary H., her influence on 
Mrs. Hopkins, 294, 295; her hypoc- 
risy, 322 

Poetry, of Mrs. Eddy, quoted, 171 

Portland, Me., 74 

Potter, Judge, 6 

Powers, Mrs. Carol Hoyt, 406 

Poyen, Charles, 54, 55 ; visits Belfast, 
Me., 83 ; influence on Quimby, 89 

Quimby, George A., 81; his claim 
concerning his father's manu- 
scripts, 100-105 ; author's inter- 
view with, 102 ; refuses to aid 
Arens, 296 
Phineas P., Dr. Patterson in- 
terested in, 74, 75; writes Mrs. 
Eddy, 80; receives visit from her, 
81; his early life, 82; becomes 
interested in mesmerism, 83 ; per- 
forms mesmeric feats, 84 ; becomes 
I a healer, 85, 86 ; his doctrine of 



INDEX 



421 



health and disease, 86, 87; sum- 
mary of his work, 88-90; releases 
Mrs. Eddy from pain, 90; receives 
from her his idea of Divine healing, 
91-93 ; his confusion in this new 
idea, 94-96 ; his assumption of 
Mrs. Eddy's ideas, 97; Mrs. 
Eddy's statement concerning prac- 
tise of, 98 ; death of, 100 ; claims 
concerning " manuscripts " of , 100- 
105 ; his doctrine an obstacle to 
Mrs. Eddy's faith, 126, 127 
Quimbyism, 82-112, 126, 134-136, 
165, 182, 183, 201, 202, 207, 225. 
296, 297 

Rand, Martha Drew, wife of George 

Baker, 45; tells of Mrs. Eddy's 

healing, 173 
Susan, attendant of Mrs. Eddy, 

79, 80 
Rawson, Dorcas, student of Mrs. 

Eddy's, 210, 227, 228, 240, 266, 

269 
Renan, his "Life of Jesus " compared 

with gospel of St Mark, xii-xiii; 

quoted, 221 
Reporter, the Lynn, Mrs. Eddy's 

contributions to, 124; account of 

her " fall," 127 
Retrospection and Introspection, 

quoted, 19, 20, 30, 48, 59, 63, 167- 

170, 178, 189-192, 223, 327 
Rice, Miranda R. , student of Mrs. 

Eddy's, 210, 227, 228, 269 
Rochester, N. Y., 55 
Roslindale, Mass., Mrs. Eddy moves 

to, 326 
Roxbury, Mass., 5 
Ruddock, Mary, 266 
Rudiments and Rules of Divine Sci- 
ence, pubhcation of, 315 
Rumney, N. H., 68, 69 
Rust, Rev. Richard S., quoted, con- 

cemmg Mrs. Eddy's mother, 14 ; 



recommends that Mrs. Eddy open 
an infants' school, 46 



Saco, Me. , 139 

Sanborn, Professor Dyer H., his part 
in Mrs. Eddy's education, 33; pro- 
fessor in N. H. Conference Semin- 
ary, 46 

Mahala, nurses George Glover, 

43 ; marriage with Russell Cheney, 
47 ; separates George from his 
mother, 47, 48 

Sanbornton Bridge, George Baker 
enters mills at, 32; revisited by 
Mrs. Eddy, 172 

Sargeant, James I. , part in conspiracy 
against Mr. Eddy and Arens, 249, 
252-258 

Sargent, Mrs. Laura, Mrs. Eddy's 
companion, 338, 344, 345, 358, 397, 
398 ; given bequest in Mrs. Eddy's 
will, 394 

Science and Health, quoted, 72, 132, 
134, 143 ; preparation of the MS. 
of, 208-210 ; its rejection by a pub- 
hsher, 210, 211; arrangements for 
printing the first edition, 214, 215 ; 
the subsequent revision, 215, 216 ; 
attacks on, 216-219 ; preparation 
for second edition, 231 ; difficulties 
and failure of new edition, 235-237 ; 
quoted, 243, 244; third edition, 
273 ; quoted, 275 ; revision of, 309 ; 
proofs read by James Henry 
Wiggin, 309-312 ; further revi- 
sions, 344 

Science of Man, The, finished by Mrs. 
Eddy, 189 ; advertised in The Chris- 
tian Science Journal, 189 ; reprinted 
in Science and Health, 190 

Sentinel, the, established as a weekly, 
372 ; announcement of the Chris- 
tian Science Monitor appears in, 
374, 375; its mission, 376; Mrs. 



422 



INDEX 



Eddy's letters in, 382, 384, 385, 
389-391 

Shannon, Miss Kate, 345 

Shiloh, battle of, George Glover 
wounded at, 63 

Sibley, Miss Alice, companion to 
Mrs. Eddy, 284, 285, 290 

Slavery, Mrs. Eddy's attitude toward, 
39, 40 ; she frees her slaves, 42 

Smith, Judge Clifford P., 402, 404 

Hanover P. , 290 

Governor Hoke, letter of, 7, 8 

Myra, Mrs. Eddy's blind ser- 
vant, 61, 62, 65, 69 

Spiritualism, birth of, 54 ; great inter- 
est taken in, 55, 56 

Spofford, Daniel H., student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 223-227 ; begins practise of 
healing, 230, 231 ; his mismanage- 
ment of the first edition of 
Science and Health, 235-237 ; his 
defection, 238-240 ; sued by Lu- 
cretia Brown for mesmerism, 241, 
242 ; report of his murder, 247 ; 
Arens and Eddy arrested as his 
murderers, 247-249 ; facts of the 
conspiracy, 252-258 

Stanley, Charles S., his unfitness as a 
student of Christian Science, 200, 
203, 204 

Stark, General, 2 

Stevens, OUver, District Attorney, 
248, 249 

Stewart, Allison V., appointed Mrs. 
Eddy's publisher, 379 ; elected to 
directorship, 379 

Rev. Samuel B., 197; unites 

Mr. and Mrs. Eddy in marriage, 
232 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 52 

Strang, Lewis C, secretary to Mrs. 
Eddy, 357, 358 ; the suit in equity, 
363 

Straw, Jane I., 269 

Streeter, General Frank S., Mrs. 



Eddy's lawyer, 358, 392 ; trustee- 
ship, 365 

Stuart, Elizabeth G., 269 

Swampscott, Mass., Mrs. Eddy's 
news-letters from, 124 

Taunton, Mass., 163, 164 

Thompson, Dr. E. J. , talks with Mrs. 
Eddy about religion, 161 

Charles P., attorney for Mrs. 

Eddy, 234 

Tilton, Abigail, see Abigail Baker 

Thompson, Alexander, marries Abi- 
gail Baker, 32; prosperity of, 

49, 50 

Tomlinson, Irving C., the suit in 
equity, 363; trusteeship, 365 

TranscendentaHsm, account of move- 
ment, 155-158 

Transcript, the Lynn, quotes Wallace 
W. Wright, 201, 202 

Traveler, the Boston, quoted, 320 

Tuttle, George, becomes one of Mrs. 
Eddy's students, 199 ; his unfitness, 
200, 203, 204 

Unitarianism, 155, 157 
Unity of Good, first appearance, 315 
Universahsm, 155, 157 
University Press, The, prints Science 
and Health, 310, 312 

Wallace, Sir William, 6 

War, the Civfl, causes leading up to, 

50, 51 

War, French and Indian, New Hamp- 
shire's part in, 2 

War of 1812, 6 

War of Independence, New Hamp- 
shire's part in, 2-4 

Webster, Daniel, 4, 35, 50, 51 

Mrs. Nathaniel, Mrs. Eddy 

boards with, 176 

Weller, Mrs. Janette E., travels with 
Mrs. Eddy, 314 



INDEX 



423 



Wentworth, Charles, 182, 184 

Horace, 182, 183 ; his unfounded 

allegations against Mrs. Eddy, 
186-188 

Lucy, 182 ; her devotion to Mrs. 

Eddy, 184, 185 

Mrs. Sally, invites Mrs. Eddy to 

live with her, 182; instructed by her 
in healing, 182, 183 

West, Dr. George L. , called as med- 
ical examiner upon Mrs. Eddy's 
death, 399; his statement, 400-401 

Whiting, Mrs. Abbie, student of Mrs. 
Eddy's, 284, 290 

Lilian, interview with Mrs. Eddy, 

SOT, 308 



Whittier, John Greenleaf, 175; meet- 
ing with Mrs. Eddy, 180 

Wiggin, Rev. James Henry, indexes 
and reads proof of 15th edition of 
Science and Health, 309-312; de- 
fense of Christian Science, 311,312 

Wilson, H. Cornell, 357 

John, 310 

Winslow, Charles, 150 

Mrs. Charles, rejects heaUng 

by Mrs. Eddy, 150, 151; visited 
by Mrs. Eddy, 175 

Wright, Wallace W., his connection 
with Mrs. Eddy's teaching, 201-203, 
207 



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